Lights dimmed and speakers started blaring as the student models waited eagerly backstage. With a flash of the event logo on three large projection screens, the first stiletto hit the runway.
More than 750 people flooded the Archie M. Griffin Grand Ballroom in the Ohio Union Wednesday for a charity fundraiser hosted by Ohio State fraternity Sigma Alpha Mu (Sammy).
Twenty-five models, which included OSU athletes, sorority women and Sammy men, strutted down the catwalk in clothes by local vendors like Time & Change Clothiers, She She Botique, Rent the Runway, National Jean Company, Sparkly Scrubs, J Spot and Pursuit.
“It was great to have a fraternity sponsor a fashion show,” said OSU President E. Gordon Gee. “They did a great job and had a lot of energy. It’s a great idea.”
Show sponsor, Time & Change Clothiers — which was launched in July 2011 by Billy Brewster, a 2009 OSU graduate and brother of football player Michael Brewster, and Eric Hanscel — provided printed T-shirts that were given away to the first 200 event attendees, as well as looks for the show from its winter collection.
With an audience of primarily sorority women, models strutted the catwalk. Men’s ice hockey captain, senior Sean Duddy, men’s soccer junior Chris Hegngi and men’s volleyball junior Grayson Overman, walked the runway in OSU-licensed clothing. OSU men’s basketball sophomore Jared Sullinger’s girlfriend, Delta Sigma Theta’s Deann Smith, stomped the runway in three different looks from She She while glancing to her boyfriend and front row audience of OSU men’s basketball players.
“Last October, we were all sitting in a room and discussing how our current sanctions do not allow us to throw the best parties at our fraternity house, so we decided we might as well throw an innovative philanthropy event that is entertaining,” said Daniel David, a third-year in communication and the show’s event coordinator. “We wanted to have not just a philanthropy event, but an entertaining event that people are going to look forward to for future years.”
The show started with a half-hour performance from The Forties, an alternative rock band started by OSU alumni.
All proceeds from the event’s $10 tickets and OSU memorabilia silent auction will be donated to The Judy Fund, a portion of the Alzheimer’s Association, and the D.R.I.V.E.N Foundation, which supports low-income families in Central Ohio.
“It’s great that they tied in with Roy Hall’s foundation, called D.R.I.V.E.N,” Brewster said.
