Fashion is always changing, and West Ranch incoming seniors Brianne Loyola, 16, and Sofia Isabel Yuvienco, 17, are contributing to its evolution.
Hosting the annual West Ranch FIDM Fashion Show on May 16, the co-presidents of the West Ranch FIDM Fashion Club utilized the runway to share concepts that mean the most to them.
With six designers, 42 outfits and 50 attendees, the club donated all proceeds to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
“We host meetings with our chapter every month, and in these meetings, we discuss the runway show. We give them examples from last year’s show and previous shows. Towards a month out of the event, we post actively on our account, trying to inform people about how this is going to go, encouraging models and designers to start coordinating with each other,” Loyola said. “They’re only allowed to practice once, so we need to make sure that everyone has their outfits and everything is set up by the time we present our show.”
According to Loyola, the models practice their catwalk the morning of the show. The designers, including Loyola and Yuvienco, implemented their passions through various fashion techniques.
“I used upcycled items. With my plastic dress, which were water bottles, my friends and I dyed it. It was a whole process to it. With my caution tape dress, I had tape from Halloween, and then with my book dress, I used three books from my past when I was in elementary school. I used all these upcycled items to spread awareness about how privileged we are as a community, and to remind people that these items are actually items people try to live off,” Loyola said. “I used the book dress to show an example of a resource that means a lot to me, which is education.”
“My looks were on global issues,” Yuvienco said. “One of them was division over politics, and I wanted to symbolize that by having two different models walk out — one in red and one in blue, to symbolize different political parties. Another one was pollution, so I had one of our models wear a blue and green canvas that symbolized our Earth and painted her with black paint to symbolize oil pollution.”
Yuvienco added: “I also had one one of my models wear a faux fur coat, and that one was about how the fashion industry has contributed the most to animal extinctions.”
Yuvienco and Loyola met in their freshman year and bonded over fashion. When they found out that the president of the club at the time, who was a senior, wasn’t as active anymore, they asked to take it over and have been involved ever since.
Using fashion to fuel their interests, Yuvienco and Loyola look forward to finding other avenues to pursue their passions.
“This year we wanted to hold a fashion show based on our own interests. I want to go into nursing and be a travel nurse, and that’s why I did mine on education. For me, a big passion is helping give kids accessible education, because it’s a big part of my life and what I’ve learned throughout high school and experienced all throughout my life,” Loyola said.
“My goal is to be a pediatrician, but especially in a nonprofit where I can help children who don’t have enough money, or are experiencing issues with [finances]. My focus has been on politics and global issues, because I’ve always been interested in that. I’ve also always been interested in how the government can help sustain people in need,” Yuvienco said.
