By: Taylor McCann
On Saturday April 27, Millett Hall took on a different look than usual. Lined with VIP seating, the court was traded in for a runway, basketball players were traded in for models and photographers roamed all around. MUF&D’s largest event of the year was underway–their 13th annual student-run fashion show: Elements. After many months of hard work and critiques, this year’s 19 student designers finally got the opportunity to display their collections. Most with sustainability in mind. One designer, Lexi Scherzinger, translated her passion for sustainability and experiences as an intern for Christian Siriano into her collection.Scherzinger is a junior at Miami University and has been designing for the show since her freshman year. This past summer, she interned for Christian Siriano in New York city where she witnessed hundreds of pounds of perfectly good fabric being tossed out each week. Scherzinger wants to make a difference in the fashion industry, so the main light blush fabric used in her collection is from a New York-based company, Fabscrap, that resells unused fabric from designers and factories with the goal of reducing textile waste. “I've done a lot of research on [sustainable fashion] for classes and on my own, which is why I wanted to use recycled materials for my collection this year,” said Scherzinger.Her four piece collection titled ‘Primavera’ includes three female pieces and one male piece inspired by Botticelli’s painting that she was able to experience first-hand while studying abroad in Paris last semester. Scherzinger also designed a piece for MUF&D’s collaborative collection ‘Reuse, Recycle, Refashion.’ For this collection, six designers came together, each creating their own piece to ultimately create a cohesive body of work. Each designer deconstructed and reconstructed leftover garments from MUF&D’s clothing swap this past fall semester to create their looks and represent the idea that old clothing can be recycled and transformed into something new. The remaining pieces not used in the collection will be donated to the charity Dress for Success in Cincinnati.MUF&D hopes to use its sustainability initiative, Scherzinger’s and multiple other student-designers’ work to educate its members on sustainable fashion and the impact that the industry can have on our environment.Photos by Lexi Scherzinger