UDress fashion show kicks off fresh looks

Walking past Trabant Multipurpose rooms A, B and C on any given day is usually just a short cut to the parking garage or on the way to grab a snack. It wouldn't warrant a second glance to catch a look at an ordinary conference, blood drive or even a lecture series.

But on Saturday, Nov. 18, it was hard to just walk by without wondering what was going on behind the plain gray doors.

A line snakes around the hallway and music blasts behind the carefully guarded doorway. UDress magazine is hosting their magazine release party, and there is nothing ordinary about it.

Junior Michael Pierson, fashion event chair, says this is not just any old fashion show.

"It is a big coming out party for UDress magazine. It is a fashion event," Pierson says.

The event, titled "Collision," is to promote the newly refined UDress magazine.

Senior Michelle Lapidos, UDress founder and editor-in-chief, says the magazine called it "Collision" because the event was bringing everything together.

"From the stores, the music, people from all over the place, students, parents, faculty and friends. Everyone was just colliding at our big event," Lapidos says.

No longer is the publication twice a semester, it's now only two issues per year. Junior Natasha Horowitz, vice fashion event chair, says producing less issues makes the publication bigger and better.

"We are doing more features and we are more organized," Horowitz says.

Once the doors open, the plain décor of the multipurpose rooms is hardly noticeable. The pre-party to the fashion show is a carefully orchestrated three-ring circus.

To the left, the musical entertainment, which includes Three Legged Fox, Jet Phynx and Scott Akins, plays in front of a huge screen with slideshow images of models from previous runway shows.

The perimeter of the room is filled with various vendors familiar to anyone from Delaware - Clothes in the Past Lane, Flavor, Gecko Fashion, GrassRoots, Lux Design Corp., Village Imports and many more - it's everything a fashionable person could want.

"We really wanted to bring our advertisers and our readers together," Lapidos says. "This event is a great way to do that."

Senior Katie Harber, vendor contact and creative services chair, says the event helped to tighten the bonds between UDress magazine and Delaware businesses.

"It is really a give and take relationship," Harber says. "If they need in-store promotion, they can count on us and we have a whole database of models to help them."

Speaking of models, the center of the room is filled with them. They surround one table with food and drinks and another with prize giveaways. Each model hands out free copies of the magazine while they teeter on high heels and boast extravagant hairstyles.

"All of our models are students," Horowitz says. "We have had several model searches advertised with kiosks in Trabant."

But there are no Kate Moss or Gemma Ward look-a-likes in the room - each model has his or her own distinct look.

"We have a range of everyone," Pierson says. "We were never looking for a specific type of person. Just people who were genuinely interested in modeling."

As the lights dim, people attempt to grab whatever seats are left. The rest of the audience is forced into standing room at the end of the runway.

International DJ JNH spins popular Fergie and Nelly Furtado tunes as the models strut their stuff on the runway.

"Every piece of clothing, except those from South Moon Under, is from a store on Main Street," Pierson says.

Harber says all of the stores are well-known in Delaware.

"We wanted to help them reach their target audience, which is college students," she says.

The models are not just showing off the new styles of Main Street - the possibility of winning a modeling contract with South Moon Under gave the show an "America's Next Top Model" feel.

At the end of the fashion showcase, audience members hand in slips of paper with their favorite male and female model.

After the votes were counted, juniors Steven Hill and Mishqua Allie are awarded the modeling contracts.

"I was really thrilled how everything turned out," Lapidos says. "We would like to do this every year to launch our fall issue. We want to keep the magazine's character by having exciting events."