By Sarah Carlson, Student Reporter
Students planned all semester for something that went by in about 10 minutes on Saturday.
“Fit, Fun and Forever Fashion” was the theme for the fashion show Saturday morning, put on by 24 fashion merchandising majors as part of an awards ceremony and reception honoring the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences.
The show was a graded project for fashion merchandising majors and a learning experience for students to see the different aspects of putting on a fashion show, as well as a chance for the students to show what they know about clothing, said Meridith Smith, junior fashion merchandising major from Beaumont.
Smith said that normally students borrow clothes to wear from local retailers for the annual fashion show but decided to model their own clothes this year.
The students were divided into groups such as backstage managers, cue persons, dressers, music coordinators, model coordinators, publicity, staging and commentating.
Smith said the students spent many hours preparing for the show.
It was the last fashion show that will occur because the FCS department will not exist after this semester, and the fashion merchandising major will be phased out.
The show served as entertainment for the reception, and the focus wasn’t as much on the grade received but on having fun at the last show, Smith said.
The FCS department is under the College of Arts and Sciences and is being broken up next year.
Certain majors, including fashion merchandising, will be completely phased out.
Current fashion merchandising majors will be able to finish their requirements in the program.
This last show made the department’s closing more of a reality to students.
“It has really saddened all of us,” Smith said, “but it doesn’t come as a shock because there are so few of us-we are an easy target to be phased off campus.”
Smith said it is hard to put into words what it feels like to have what she wants to do with her life no longer being offered as a major.
Lauren Stiger, senior fashion merchandising major from Fort Worth, shares Smith’s feelings on the ending of the program.
“I don’t like it,” Stiger said. “It makes me nervous about whether my major is really wanted in the world or not. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about it.”
