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Fashion minor makes waves during MUCFD’s annual Fashion Week

By Kevin Vestal, For The Miami Student

Miami University's Club of Fashion and Design (MUCFD)kicks off its annual Fashion Week on Monday. Over 250 students from the organization will come together to design outfits, model clothes and market masterpieces.

"I think people will be super impressed with the quality of the garments," said Maggie Durrin, one of MUCFD's design directors.

Durrin's own collection, titled "Les Jardins Du Paris," is inspired by the art of Claude Monet and will be on display alongside the work of numerous other student designers at MUCFD's 10th annual spring fashion show on April 16.

Fashion Week serves as one of the university's largest outlets for students to "express their creativity" through modeling or marketing, said Christina Beebe, vice president of MUCFD.

"People feel confident when they're dressed a certain way or have their hair a certain way," said Beebe.

Preparations for Fashion Week have been a year in the making. Beginning in September, the club's executive board checked in on designers monthly, examining their sketches and patterns.

Designers were encouraged to make mood boards - collages made from magazine clippings and fabric swatches - that would inspire them throughout the design process, said Durrin.

According to Caroline Cliff, MUCFD's PR and marketing director, anyone is welcome to design for the show, regardless of their creative background.

"It's not super strict because we don't want to discourage anybody," Cliff said. "But we want to make sure they can create a full collection for our show that will look nice."

Designers are not just limited to cloth, as evidenced when Joe Plecha turned heads last year for experimenting with metal.

This year, the annual MUCFD fashion show at Millett Hall will see a genesis due to the introduction of Miami's fashion minor, according to Beebe.

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Before the minor, most MUCFD designers were self-taught. Fashion-oriented students took sewing classes through the theatre department, but never had professional training for runway-ready dresses.

Now students can learn in Miami's new industrial sewing studio and carry over their skills from the classroom to the club.

"The minor drives the club and the club drives the minor," Beebe said. "We work together to give students the best resources we can."

The program started two years ago when MUCFD students asked for a way to study fashion in the classroom. New faculty members were brought on board last semester to meet this demand.

"I'm only here because of them," said Della Reams, a fashion professor who was hired in fall 2015.

Reams and Leslie Stoel worked together to combine the resources of the College of Creative Arts and Farmer School of Business. The new curriculum teaches all elements of the industry, from silk dyeing to fashion buying.

As of March 1, the fashion minor has 160 students enrolled, many of whom overlap with MUCFD membership. Reams said that in an average week, she gets at least three requests from students who want to add the minor.

Due to the program's success, Reams and Stoel are planning to debut a fashion co-major in the fall. The co-major will have three tracks - corporate business, entrepreneurship and design.

New course offerings like "Apparel Construction Technique" and "Contemporary Fashion History" will prepare fashion students to enter the field.

"These students don't know what they don't know," Reams said. "I'm here to show them."

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