Simone Hudson’s voice could be heard shouting over the loud Caribbean music. It’s the night of the Caribbean Latin American Student Association cultural merge fashion show.
By Joanna Caporusso
4/19/2005
Hudson, coordinator of the event and member of CLASA assigned people to projects while getting the room ready for the event. The event, a fundraiser for Catherine Hall Primary School in Montego Bay, Jamaica, is filled with students and members of CLASA.
“We need the curtains to hide the models as they walk to the runway,” Hudson demanded. “Can you turn the lights up?” she yelled up to the sound stage.
The bright lights on stage flickered behind her—orange, red, blue, white—all to find the perfect lighting for each segment of the show. The show was to begin in only two hours and the crew was still rehearsing, doing sound and light checks, and making sure everything was in place. The empty seats in the Assembly Room of the William Pitt Union on the University of Pittsburgh campus would soon be filled by Pitt students and friends of the models.
Models ran around in their sweat pants, jeans and t-shirts before the show started. They planned their walks down the runway, timing it to the rhythmic reggae music that played overhead. For a show that was to begin in two hours, everyone seemed somewhat calm not allowing nerves or pressure get to them.
While the models scurried to clothe themselves, beats of Caribbean music played in the background. Only minutes before the fashion show began, the student models put last minute touches on their wardrobes, pinning the garments that are slightly too large, adding earrings and bracelets to accessorize their already extravagant traditional Nigerian wardrobe. They practice their runway walk in their stilettos hoping there will be no falls on the runway.
Snapping her fingers and counting to a fast beat, Hudson directed the models on their walk. “Slower! Stop! You, back up a little,” she yells to the first set of models to go on stage. They all listen, fearing they’ll be off pace once they get on stage.
“We wanted to have a show with just modeling,” Hudson said. “But, we didn’t have enough models so we came up with the idea of combining different acts.”
The different acts are what created the entire night, titled “Cultural Merge.” The night included salsa dancing, reggae vocalists, guitar playing, and the Japanese Speaking Society danced and sang in between the runway events.
“The outfits were donated to us by Afimi Clothing Company and Unique Boutique,” Ashley Eadie, collaborating coordinator of the CLASA fashion show said. “Simone tweaked some of the articles also and everyone added their own touches.”
Metamorphosis, the first modeling segment, was inspired by traditional Nigerian clothing. The outfits ranged from a white knee length dress to a yellow and brown printed wrap around ensemble. It wrapped around the model’s chest, under one arm and over another, pinned in the back with the skirt tied around at the side of her waist, revealing the outer thigh of her very long leg. The segment began with the traditional Nigerian clothing and ended with three men and a girl in business suits to show the transformation of how African trends have become Europeanized.
“I saw the Caribbean metamorphosis segment as connecting the past to the future,” Hudson said of the segment.
In between modeling outfits, the girls quickly changed, pinned, and accessorized their second, third, and fourth outfits while entertainers performed for the audience. Each performer got the audience hyped up, made their adrenaline flow, and made it even more exciting for them to see what the models would be wearing next.
