Last Saturday, UCF’s Reflecting Pond with its fountain and lights produced an alluring background for the first ever College Fashion Week to come to the campus.
While the show ran smoothly with a band, DJ, vendors and more, it was a long process for the Her Campus UCF team.
It initially started in July when the UCF Campus Correspondents received a surprising, but thrilling phone call, according to one of the two UCF Campus Correspondents and Editor-in-Chief, Nicholas Osler.
“Sarah and I got a call from the president of Her Campus, Windsor Hanger Western, in July. She asked us if we wanted to host College Fashion Week at UCF, and of course Sarah and I agreed. It was kind of a surreal moment. It was the first time we had ever spoken to Windsor on the phone since joining the Her Campus team, and she was asking us to do something Sarah and I had only dreamed of doing until that moment,” Osler said.
Sarah Heyl, the other UCF Campus Correspondent and HCUCF Marketing Director, said as soon as they knew they’d be hosting the event, they got to work.
Heyl and Osler had many calls to make from that point on, but were pleased to have secured the location in front of Milican Hall.
“Since the Reflection Pond is one of the favorite spots on campus, we felt that having CFW there would be a perfect location to represent UCF’s campus culture. It was so beautiful and we couldn’t have asked for a better backdrop,” Heyl said.
Once the logistics were covered and school started up again, Heyl and Osler got the HCUCF team involved with marketing and spreading the word.
The team was able to reach their goal of having 400 people register for the event online, and when the actual day came Heyl, Osler and a few of the team members were up at 7am.
The first event included a tent set up by People StyleWatch right in front of Milican Hall.
Melanie Price, a stylist born and raised in Orlando, was there with racks of clothing, stacks of free magazines and lots of advice for the about 100 people that came in an out of the tent that day. She even did bra fittings for the girls that wanted one.
Everyone that went to that event left with a purple bagu goodie bag filled with coupons, a notebook, and other goodies.
That event carried on right until the about 200 attendees flocked to the Reflecting Pond for the fashion show.
The HCUCF team had set everything up as the fashion show drew nearer, from the VIP chairs and goodie bags to the vendor stations and the buckets of ice for the Neuro stand.
As the People StyleWatch tent came down, the fashion show came alive piece by piece.
The attendees visited the different vendors, grabbed a free drink from Neuro and a free notebook from Poppin and listened to the music from the two artists that were there.
There was a DJ from Knightcast, a non-profit student Internet radio station and event DJ services, and he did this thing before and during the show. In between the DJ was Sidereal, a pop-reggae/rock band based out of Jacksonville Beach.
The music stopped, the VIP audience took their seats, others gathered on the steps of the pond and the show began.
Windsor Hanger, co-founder, co-president and publisher for Her Campus Media, began the show by introducing the first scene: “You Snooze, You Lose,” and out came one model after another, each adding their own spark of personality to their walk across the side of the pond.
This scene was followed by three more including one called “Go to Class? I am Class,” which Caroline Cole, senior Advertising and Public Relations student and CFW attendee liked the best.
“My favorite scene was probably the “Go to Class, I have class” scene because some of my favorite outfits were in it. There were some really cute high-waisted shorts and dresses,” Cole said.
The high-waisted shorts Cole mentioned were from Outspokken, and the show contained outfits and accessories from Henri Girl, Adidas, Lily Pulitzer and more.
Both Heyl and Osler were very pleased with the show, despite the months of hard work they put into it.
“The show couldn’t have been any more perfect. Everything from the band, the DJ, the models, the people who came out to support us; I couldn’t have imagined it any other way,” Osler said.