Buffalo State College: 2022 Runway Fashion Show Unites To 'Push For Progress'

Buffalo NY

21 April, 2022

3:16 PM

Description

Press release from Buffalo State College: April 20, 2022 For this year's Runway fashion show, student designers in the Buffalo State College Fashion and Textile Technology (FTT) Department are "Pushing for Progress." "It's a theme we left purposely open-ended," said Erin Habes, '03, FTT lecturer and Runway coordinator. "Everybody who created a collection looked at the focus and built their collection off of that." Now in its 14th year, Runway will be held on Saturday, April 30, at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m., in the Sports Arena. The show, which is open to the public, will highlight the collections of five seniors, showing what Push for Progress means to them, along with many other students designers in the program. Senior Atiya Lino was inspired by the struggles Black people face because of the color of their skin. "I want to uplift our people and celebrate our triumphs," Lino said about her collection, "Colors Bound to Tired Skins." "I feel like Black people have been taunted so much for their skin. When anybody wears this, you can see that we're all united in the face of whatever we're going through in any point of life." For Cameron Johnson, a senior FTT major whose collection is titled "Power of Patterns," viewed Push for Progress as an opportunity. "It's a push for a positive change, to acknowledge any issues or changes we have to make for the better," Johnson explained. Seniors Mouse Rodriguez and Jessibel Velazquez saw this year's focus as an opportunity to address sustainability and inclusivity in fashion. Rodriguez's collection, "Advantage," seeks to make inclusive fashion for people of all body types and genders, while Velazquez was inspired by the "overproduction, overconsumption of clothing in the fashion industry," and aims to change the direction of fashion to a slower and more sustainable pace with her collection, "Rerouting Innovation." "I think that progress comes from youth," said Ali Eagen, who teaches FTT 451 Senior Project. "It's carried through by students and young people, so the theme is really fitting. It's been fun to see all the students have such a personal connection to it because they each got to pick something that really matters to them." This press release was produced by Buffalo State College. The views expressed here are the author's own.