Rowan College at Burlington County’s fashion department and Atlantic City Fashion Week will present a Black History Month fashion show on Feb. 8 with designs from 20 students.
One of them, Frankie Sanchez, described her pieces as playful and comfortable.
“It’s almost like your inner child coming out, when, you know, you’re 20 years old and you just want to have fun,” she said. “It’s very bright and colorful.”
Sanchez’s garments feature hand-painted images inspired by Anime shows such as “Hunter x Hunter.”
“They’re all very playful and fun and colorful,” Sanchez explained. “It’s just like a rainbow on the screen and a lot of them are characters – Japanese characters – so some of them say ‘fight,’ or some of them are just sound effects.”
Lisa Steinberg, program coordinator of the Rowan fashion department, explained the lack of a central theme for the show.
“We really allow the students freedom within the confines of technical expertise,” she explained. “As long as they meet the laundry list of pockets, zippers, buttons and seams … then we kind of say, ‘The sky is the limit.’”
Steinberg teaches her students to incorporate designs with deep meaning.
“I want them to feel – at the end – that they are on trend, but there’s something very personal about it as well,” she noted. “Very often, it’s rooted in their own family dynamics.”
Sanchez has been studying fashion since she was in elementary school.
“I got more in touch with it with my father’s mother –my grandmother – because she was a seamstress for years and she just recently stopped,” she said. “So ever since then, I’ve stuck with it.”
She described seeing her sketches come to life.
“… But when you actually finish it and it’s on a person, and the person has a smile on their face … I feel like that’s the best feeling ever,” Sanchez noted. “It just builds up the serotonin in your brain like, ‘Oh my gosh, I actually did this.’”
The college fashion department also has a spring show.
“I really want to see all my fellow classmates and students work really hard and push themselves, because a lot of them right now are in a little comfort zone,” Sanchez said.
“I feel like a lot of us stay in one box and then when we get pushed a little bit more and succeed our expectations that we had beforehand,” she added. “It’s like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know I could do this.’”
For Steinberg, both shows are about honoring student success.
“When we celebrate, you want that perfection on that runway – not that you always get it – but that you want that because it’s for them,” she explained. “At the end of the day, it’s for them.”
