Fashion shows are such a pleasure to attend. You spend hours getting ready, and when you arrive at the venue, you count the seconds because you’re excited to see the models walk the runway wearing fabulous creations. If you attended Capital Catwalk January 31st, you know exactly what we mean. If you weren’t able to make it this time, do not fret as we host a charity fashion show every year, and they are bigger and better every time!
I sat down with the president of the Her Campus Events & Marketing team, Jessica Mastronardi, to give us some details on the behind the scenes of the Fashion Show “Capital Catwalk” hosted by our beloved Her Campus uOttawa Chapter.
HC: First of all, what is your role in Her Campus uOttawa?
Jessica: I am the president of the Events & Marketing team for a second year. I am in charge of planning events that will help promote the magazine on campus. I also manage a team of 18 members who help me with my role.
HC: How does your team contribute?
Jessica: Being president means I have the duty to distribute tasks to others members so it ensures that I am not overloaded, but that everyone feels that they are contributing to the club at the best of their abilities. In other words, we divided the efforts.
HC: What are the tasks that you assigned them?
Jessica: Some have very defined roles such as Andrea Faubert who is our VP of Promotion. She’s the one who makes sure that we have an important presence on campus. Mariam Zohouri is our VP of Sponsorship, she’s the one who finds all our partnerships that we need to function. Of course, we have our Director of Media, Zoë Crego- she makes sure that all the articles get uploaded on our website and shares them on our Facebook page, as well as keep up with our Instagram and Twitter page. Finally, Natasha Gaudet is our VP of Productions. If we didn’t have her, we probably wouldn’t have a fashion show. She is the one producing the show. She is in charge of how the show will run, finding designers, make-up artists and so much more.
HC: How many members do you have?
Jessica: As of now, we’re a team of 18 people. It’s a pretty large team to manage, but it’s a lot of fun because I have a chance to collaborate with amazing people and hear their creative ideas.
HC: Does it get hard sometimes working with so many people?
Jessica: No doubt about it, even though we all love and respect each other, it’s inevitable that sometimes we disagree especially when everyone has an opinion or an idea that they want to bring to the table.
HC: How do you bond with one another?
Jessica: Most of us have been in the Her Campus “family” since it first started, so the friendships and the bonds grow in time. Some of us share classes together, so the interaction doesn’t stop after we leave our weekly meetings.
HC: How do you get your team motivated?
Jessica: I think that mine and my team members’ passion for Her Campus is the reason we do what we do. Students can have a hard time finding a place where they fit in especially in University. Her Campus offers you a wide variety of writing and marketing leadership opportunities. Also, when I interview potential members, I ask them to treat this as if it is their real jobs particularly if they want to one day have a career in marketing and events. It’s a valuable way of learning how to be professional and respectful.
HC: Speaking of motivation, why did you choose “The Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation” as the charity this year?
Jessica: We wanted the charity this year to be Ottawa base so we could give back to the community. Jennifer Graves, our contact with the organization, was a pleasure to collaborate with. She gave us so much support; we only want to make them proud.
HC: Why did you change the location to The Shaw Convention?
Jessica: This year, the team and I wanted the fashion show “Capital Catwalk” to be larger than previous years. Since we expanded the event, we needed a bigger venue so the Shaw Center was a perfect fit for a downtown venue.
HC: How were you able to expand the fashion show?
Jessica: We were able to do a lot more this year because of the help of our generous sponsors such as TD Canada Bank, Faces Magazine and Press Fashion Magazine. We couldn’t have done it without them.
HC: When did the team start working on the fashion show?
Jessica: We’ve all been working on producing this show since September. It’s roughly 5 to 10 hours of work every week for each member. It’s a lot of stress and hard work, people think it’s easy, but they have no idea how much organizing, time, and dedication is put into a project like this. At the same time we don’t want people to forget that we do have a lot fun while doing it.
HC: How did you come up with the name “Capital Catwalk”?
Jessica: We live in Ottawa, so we thought that “Capital” was perfectly suitable. Also, we wanted to have a name that we could reuse, hopefully for future fashion shows.
HC: Finally, do you have any last words you want to add?
Jessica: Amber Gillan, Andrea Faubert, Caelan Crerar, Chloé Nadeau, Dawn Faithful, Ikram El Saddik, Julien Boissoneault, Mariam Zohouri, Meaghan Hannah, Michael Wong, Monica Boudreau, Natasha Gaudet, Nicole Paul, Zoë Crego, Rosa Mendicino, Kelsey Burton and Jaclyn Friedlich.
Thank you for all the hours, hard work, emails sent and all the tickets you sold. Everything we do is a team effort. I know that it doesn’t matter what I do, I have a great support system. You are all very talented in your field, and I have no doubts that you are all going to be successful because you all have the drive and passion that leaders encompass.
Also, a special thanks to two other wonderful executives, Aeriel Kent and Elizabeth Radkte, co editors-in-chief of this wonderful chapter. Thank you for having complete faith in me. It’s been wonderful working with you!