The Time is Now Fashion Show

Last night I had the privilege of attending the Kent State Senior Fashion Show.  I was able to see some of the dress rehearsal when I covered it for the news (you can go here and click on TV2 News 4-15-11 to watch, it's about 2 and a half minutes in.) but didn't have a ticket for the actual show until my friend Kelly, read all about her here, called me three hours before the show saying she had an extra.

After seeing the different collections, it is no surprise that Kent is ranked 3rd in the country and 13th in the world for fashion schools.  Not only was I impressed by the designs, I was impressed by the professionalism of the student-run show.

Along with the 37 senior collections, there was a luxury cotton portion where designers created jackets as well as an individual submission portion with around 30 designs.  While the senior collections were extraordinary, almost all of them were in the same color scheme.  My friend's mom and I both caught on to this and thought it might have been part of the theme but it wasn't.  We would have liked to see more differentiation of the colors.  They were all neutrals.  This really made the few collections with bright colors stand out even more.  One of my favorite collections of the night was inspired by 1940s swimsuits and they were adorable!  Another collection that stood out was maternity wear.  It had bright colors and was extremely cute.  The show closed with a collection of three wedding dresses that were stunning.

The judges for this year's competition were Leanne Marshall, 2008 winner of "Project Runway"; Jeff Mahshie, senior designer for Lord & Taylor; and Jeff Bergus, a designer for JCPenny and IZOD.  Each of the judges selected their own favorite and then together they selected a best in show.  This year, best in show went to Abigail Drake for her menswear collection.  Even though he wasn't a judge, former "Project Runway" contestant and Kent State grad Suede was at the show.

I can't wait to see what the future has in store in store for these designers.  I look forward to one day buying their clothes and being able to say I went to school with them.