The new crop of CSUN’s fashion designers sent their work down the runway at Thursday’s TRENDS fashion show, ‘The World is Your Runway.’

With a wide range of styles from ghetto-chic to Star Trek-inspired apparel, each designer took their first steps into the fashion world.

‘It’s a stepping stone to the real world,’ the fashion students’ professor Longeun Kim said. The show is the last hurrah for all the students at CSUN because they will be graduating in the spring semester, Kim said.

‘We lived together for four months,’ Kim added. ‘They’re all my babies.’

The students work was born out of a spring semester worth of work and a rigorous final two weeks leading up to the fashion show, during which time most designers were making changes until the last second when their work went up on the runway.

Designer Alicia Baker said that she added an accessory to one of her African print-inspired looks the day of the show.

For some, this night was also the first time their work was ever in a competition to be looked at and judged by professionals in the fashion world. The panel of judges ranged from a manager at Bloomingdales, to human resource director for Saks Fifth Avenue, and even a midlevel celebrity such as fashion designer Daniel Franco from Project Runway.
A former fashion student, Franco knows how the CSUN fashion designers felt on this night. Franco said in his school’s fashion show, he ‘was sweating bullets and working still to the last minute.’

‘It’s commendable,’ Franco added,’ ‘a great way for people to show their art.’

Michael Wong won the competition with a classic-modern look he says is inspired by Audrey Hepburn, Jaclyn Kennedy, and Queen Elizabeth.

‘His style is what’s definitely ‘in’ the market right now,’ said Kelland Rolland, Agenda Showroom Vice President and one of the eight judges.

Wong isn’t humble about his goals in fashion. ‘I wanna be big,’ Wong said.
Despite his previous experience in the fashion program at Pasadena City College, Wong says this was also his first time he had his work on display.

Wong says that his clothes are a success if people like it and can wear it.

Some noticeable pieces in the show included Grace Chung’s skirt where she handmade all the fabric roses. Another was a sleek wedding tuxedo and bride’s gown.

Tommy Massie, one of the attendees at the show, said that he liked the wedding tuxedo. ‘If I looked like (the model), hell yeah,’ Massie added he would wear the tuxedo.

The crowd was rarely silent during the show. Whistles, claps and cheers sometimes drowned out the music in the background as the models strutted down the runway.

The evening of fashion took place at the Plaza del Sol Performance Hall.’

After a semester’s worth of work and two weeks of sleeping in the tiniest of crevices in the fashion lab, the senior fashion students were still full of life.

As the fashion students walked off the runway after their final bow, one student yelled, ‘It’s over!’