An editorial shot of the Fashion Production Association 2018-2019 executive board. Photo Credit: Sydney Smith
Fashion is on the forecast all week as the Ohio State Fashion Production Association brings fashion week to campus.
Each day from Monday through Saturday, FPA will hold fashion-related events for students and the community. The organization is also using this week to market its 27th-annual FPA fashion show Saturday.
“We wanted to use fashion week as a tool to get people to come in and interact with our organization, and also bring awareness to our fashion show,” Josh Jackson, a fourth-year in marketing and finance and co-president of FPA, said. “Every day is a different event that leads up to the show.”
To kick off the week, the organization hosted a meet-up at Polaris Fashion Mall in the Madewell store and J. Crew. Jackson said this event would be beneficial because the organization was being taken off campus in order to connect with a broader audience.
Tuesday, the organization will put on a denim deconstruction class where participants can bring in old denim and create a new clothing item. This event follows this year’s fashion show theme, “NEXT.”
“With the ‘NEXT’ theme, we’re following what’s going to happen next in fashion, so with the denim deconstruction event, we play with the idea that in the future, we’re going to be reusing materials to create new clothes,” Jackson said.
FPA will partner with the Undergraduate Student Government for Wednesday’s event. The organization will be supporting the USG sustainability fashion show. FPA faculty adviser, Nancy Rudd, said that she likes seeing partnerships with other organizations in this year’s fashion week.
“We like to partner with other groups on campus to increase the visibility and presence of both groups on campus,” Rudd said.
Thursday’s event will feature a panel of industry professionals, both in design and merchandising, who will come to campus to talk about what is happening in the fashion world.
Rudd said this will give students and participants the opportunity to see what they can expect once they leave school and begin to work in the fashion industry.
Being that this is the second fashion week put on by FPA, the organization learned from the past year’s successes to plan for this year. Rudd said Friday’s event, the Fashion Market, was worth bringing back.
“Last year we did the Fashion Market where we had vendors come and set up tables with their material, and students and the community could shop around,” Rudd said. “This was a big success last year, and it really helped support local artists in the community, so we thought we’d try that again.”
Jackson said he hopes the events will bring more community interest to the organization for future years.
“I’m excited to see it succeed this year and help us grow as an organization,” Jackson said.
The fashion show will take place on Saturday in the Ohio Union at 6:30 p.m. More information about all of this week’s events can be found on the organization’s Instagram page, @fpaatosu.
