A sci-fi battle of garments, gowns, and aliens in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences took center stage during this year’s Fashion X-Cetera Runway Show.
A student organization comprised of 78 members in and out of the college’s fashion merchandising and design program, the group held their annual runway event on April 5 in Harrison Auditorium.
“Our purpose is to create awareness of the fashion merchandising and design program among members of the university, community and high schools around the county as well as equate participants with various sectors of the fashion industry through guest speakers, field trips, and other activities,” said Fashion X-Cetera president Mya Harris.
Jada Murrain, a freshman in the fashion merchandising design program with pieces of her own in the show, said she joined the student group as a way to “build a community around fashion on campus.”
“I’m new, so you’re always trying to make friends and get involved,” said Murrain. “I had heard about the fashion show and said, ‘Whoa! Everyone gets to see my designs!’ This was my way in. I worked with five models for the show, so it was a really big project.”
Devona Dixon, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, highlighted the program in opening remarks.
“The fashion merchandising and design program is a comprehensive, four-year baccalaureate degree that uniquely and deliberately combines merchandising and design concepts and provides students with a holistic view of the creation and distribution of fashion products,” said Dixon.
This year’s runway theme, “Area 14”, was built around a sci-fi narrative developed by the group: an alien figure, Queen Mother, arrives on Earth and attempts to steal the “drip” (fashion style) of N.C. A&T’s campus.
Fashion X-Cetera member Tina Richards as "Queen Mother", designed by Mya Harris
“We were curating this theme during the summer, and I had the idea of doing something different and hadn’t been seen before within Fashion X-Cetera,” said Harris. “I thought about aliens and a lot of media talks about UFOs and Area 51, and we workshopped it with different ideas.”
From there, Fashion X-Cetera’s designers crafted several unique patterns and garments that fit within several sections of the narrative, including black & green colored pieces, a corporate Men in Black-inspired line of suit & ties (called the “Men in Green”), a selection of battle-worn grunge clothes based on fashion mogul Rick Owens, and a “dynamic duo” of side-by-side models walking together or, in one outfit, sewn together by the arms.
“Within the show, the Men in Green are the fighting force to keep what’s ours: to keep the fashionable aesthetic of school and what we see with how our students dress,” said Harris.
The final outfit, Queen Mother herself, is a purple, Met Gala-inspired three-piece dress designed by Harris.
“We created this character to represent power,” said Harris. “An authority, with seductive vibes. When we created this garment, I wanted to have very a dramatic, flowing yet form fitting drape, and with a lot of the colors in the show being black & green, I wanted the purple to stand out from that.”
