When she and her fellow fashion design majors found out their senior fashion show was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, senior Dayjah Lee said the group was devastated. Students were upset and angry at the situation, and there were many tears, Lee said.
Every year, fashion design majors premiere a collection they create in a fashion show at Assembly Hall, Lee said. While they knew this year was going to be different due to the pandemic, she said it came as a shock when IU canceled their fashion show 10 days before the scheduled date due to risk of having too many people. After that, Lee said she and some other fashion designers came up with the idea to premiere their own off-campus fashion show to debut their collections.
“Instead of wasting time being upset about it, we started to make something happen for ourselves,” Lee said. “Because especially for most of us who are seniors, this is our big chance to be able to have a show, and we wanted to be able to pull something off.”
The show premiered at 2 p.m. Sunday in Fairfax State Recreation Area, where the group rented a pavilion. The show lasted about 10 minutes as models from six different designers walked a red carpet for an audience of friends and family. Audience members were told to bring chairs and blankets to spread out, and masks were required.
