Follow“X marks ten years of shared adherence, evolution, as well as a threshold to many more years of creative expression,” writes FAST co-president and graduating senior Nataly Flores. Opposite her letter in FAST at UC Berkeley’s first full-length print issue, Flores’ fellow Fashion and Student Trends co-president Cory Mohn explains the setup of Sunday evening’s show:
“Each of our designers will reveal themselves through the narratives of their collections down our runway in the shape of the 24th letter of the alphabet: X.” Indeed, the Krutch Theater floor was geometrically marked this way with tape.
To no one’s surprise, the 10th year anniversary fashion show started late. I’d run in a minute after the hour myself, a cliché in head-to-toe black; the rest of the audience displayed a propensity for leather, cuffed denim, jumpsuits, and scarf-sweater combos forgiven this time of year due to the chilly evening breeze.
The show was divided into three segments and the first featured an emphasis on concept and colour: we witnessed a religion-inspired collection from Megan Rigggio and Nazo Demirdjian (Sanctae Pomanae Ecclesiae); the use of children’s toys as material by senior Elizabeth Rupp (Play); and life-sized butterflies from Alice Liu (La Papillon). Also within the segment was Vivian Chuang’s almost military-mod re-envisioning of Ancient Roman styles (The Empires) and design director Tina Xu’s impressively bold and ready-to-wear collection, Opium.
Milan translated to Berkeley in the form of Victorian styles (Opium), singular prints (Elizabeth Rupp’s Bold), and a lot of office chic (Orange Ma’s Polychroma in particular). The office chic bled into segment two, which held a more serious tone.
Assistant model director Fung Tai made her final walk of the show in a sheer-backed tuxedo jacket by design director Shahir Shukor (Bleue X-exist), who introduced his collection as one with a promising “no skirts.” The pantsuit and jumpsuit trend followed after a jump with Wesley Yu’s Wesley Yu Haute Couture and Farida Radwan’s X-traction, the latter of which who fashioned a glittery, JJ-esque short film piece to precede her collection’s strut.
Cutting into the solemnness of this segment were designers Audrey Chou and Meghan Martin. Although this segment was already heavily dependent on structure over colour, Chou took an entirely different approach with geometric accessories in Prism, her first solo collection with FAST. Immediately following Chou, Martin showcased seashell-appliqué tops, mermaid bras, leggings, and fringed capes—endearingly prêt for Berkeley’s next under-the-sea co-op party.
This fun diversion was momentary, before designer Yang Qu’s [E] concluded the segment with a prolific number of designs—including the tulle flesh-toned dress on FAST Issue 2’s cover—each topped with wispy Maleficent horns. Shoutout here to FAST’s makeup and hair team (Angie Farias, Fung Tai, Dakota Goodman, and Masha Andreyeva), two of which walked in the collection.
Goodman and Andreyeva, who are also Model Directors, easily stole the spotlight with effortless strides and aloof facades.
Between segments, sponsors local non-profit Youth Speaks America and shopping app The Hunt raffled off goodies; models took selfies backstage; and starving college fashionistas lined up for free cookies… because #priorities.
If segment two was about structure and segment one about concept, I’d have to crown segment three with fabric: the prints actually got bold in Michelle Chen’s Black’s Grey and design director Soazig Kaam’s Negatives. Design director Zackary Harris dip-dyed his own fabrics for his collection Gradient, which featured simple but effective designs, including a crop top that ventured into the realm of menswear. Jacklin Ha also added surprise factor with an LED-lit skirt in her fairytale-inspired Dream a Little Dream.
Despite an abundance of unfinished hems (and hasty, late night sewing, we imagine), a couple stumbles (trains are hard), and one musical mix-up (that was not-at-all thematically damaging), it would appear that X was a successful reflection of the development and growth of FAST over the past decade. The diversity captured by its 24 designers, 80 models, and numerous logistics and support staff mirrored that of Berkeley’s—from borrowed yet new The Dawning by Grace Kim to retrospective yet forward-thinking Samsara; from youthful Play to sophisticated Carpe Noctem by Mariko Stenstedt; from religiously-grave Sanctae to culturally-festive Negatives… from open to close.
From here, writes Flores, “our next beginning.”
Image sources: https://twitter.com/fastcal/status/595086206821486593
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