Spring Fashion Show features student designers

The Fashion Merchandising Society held their annual Spring Fashion Show Tuesday night, which featured designs and creations made by promising young student designers.  

The show, which took place in the Memorial Union Ballroom, was hosted by FMS president Kaylan Burns. Burns, a sophomore writing and rhetoric major with a textiles and communications double minor, has been involved in the club since First Night her freshman year.

“I took over as president at the beginning of this year, and we started planning for this show almost immediately,” Burns said. “It’s hard to do planning because we have a very small executive board.”

With help from Christine McMahon, an executive member of FMS and the vice president of Rhody Runway, Burns has been able to keep the spring fashion show tradition running and hopes to improve even more in the future.

“I really couldn’t have done any of this without Christine’s help,” Burns said. “We worked with Rhody Runway to coordinate this show. She was my right-hand person for all of this. It took a lot of planning, but it was definitely fun.”

The night’s show began with a showcase of the latest designs of RoundTableClothing, created by students Patrick Fernandez, Kasaun Jordan and Yemi Onipede. RoundTableClothing is a Providence, Rhode Island, based clothing company that designs and sells unique, urban-wear-style clothing. Next up was the work of senior Kristina Dufficy, who showcased her elegant dresses on the runway. Following this was the work of freshman Isabella Gavinovich, with minimalistic designs that featured interesting patterns and shapes. Finally, the distressed denim designs of Afton O’Neal closed out the show. O’Neal’s unique pieces featured reused denim to create intriguing shapes and patterns.

Burns was very happy with how the show turned out, and is also very hopeful for the future of the club. At the end of last year, most of the executive board members graduated, making the club much smaller and in need of more members. Burns said that the new member involvement this year is exciting, and she hopes to use it to the clubs advantage.

“There are a lot of freshmen involved this year which is great, and it’s really great to see younger people getting involved,” Burns said. “I definitely plan to stay involved, and maybe we can start a bit earlier next year so we can do something bigger, or do something both semesters next year.”

Burn added that she greatly appreciates how the club is open to anyone, and said that involvement makes the planning process for events like this much easier.

“It’s a great creative outlet for a lot of people at URI who may not have a chance to get involved with fashion otherwise,” Burns said.  

The Fashion Merchandising Society is wrapping up their year now and will be holding executive board elections in the near future. They are a group that is open to anyone who may want to get involved, whether that be with fashion designing or event planning. For more information about FMS, please visit http://studentorg.apps.uri.edu/.