By Kiyanna Noel
Designers, models and a different style of modeling was used this weekend at House of Divinity’s first fashion show in the Warren Ballrooms of the Angell College Center May 6 at 6:30 p.m.
The show was hosted by Jaherah Seales and Jesse Rose. The show started off with a few technical issues as the microphones were not working causing both hosts to struggle with projecting.
The first designer was Kaliyah Greene and her brand is K.Minitotes. Greene’s brand is handbags, totes and fanny packs. Usually, at SUNY Plattsburgh there is a runway used, but this time around the models used more modern poses for each bag and walked in a semicircle.
“I’ve been sewing handmade tote bags for three years now. I also have a men’s collection, but sorry it wasn’t in this one,” Greene said. “I do custom orders, I do all sizes: shoulder bags, large tote bags. Thanks for coming to support me.”
Following this was a performance from Ausaa, the African Dance team. Their performance generated lots of screams from crowd members. After this was a game introduced by the hosts. The objective of the game was for the audience to guess the name of different high end brands for a prize. Many of the students who answered questions unfortunately did not win prizes because they did not follow the instructions from Seales and Rose. Participants were supposed to stand up if they knew the answer instead of saying them out loud.
The second brand was JennNYC by Jenn. Jenn is a 2022 SUNY Plattsburgh alumna who is also the stylist for H.O.D. The collection included a variety of clothes, shirts, pants and even an umbrella with the word “WHO” on it in a graffiti font.
“I’ve been doing this for some time now but I haven’t publicized it. Maybe I’ll start someday hopefully after this,” Jenn said. “I appreciate you guys coming out and I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed making all this in my living room like last week.”
This was followed by an intermission that only lasted about 30 minutes as students and guests enjoyed food from Chartwells. After this, audience members were encouraged to walk the runway.
Another game was played with two members of H.O.D. Public Relations Chair Thomeisha Belle and Treasurer Rashad Nicholas. In this game, audience members were asked trivia questions about the e-board in order to win a pair of shorts from Jenn’s collection.
The audience members followed the instructions of Belle and Nicholas which allowed there to be a smooth transition from the game to the next performance of Spicy Island Tings. Despite this being their second performance of the day, the members still had high energy and the crowd still screamed their friends’ names repeatedly as the lights on their phones flashed.
Then after their performance ended, four audience members were nominated to play a game called “Rip the Runway” where they were encouraged to do their best runway.
This was followed by the third and final designer was Kaila Rose who created Kase Klothed. Rose is a NYC-based designer. Her clothes resulted in gasps from the audience as it was something that was very different than what was previously shown at other fashion shows on campus.
JEDI Dance productions performed an almost perfect routine after this designer. However, dancer Daniela Raymond had to be carried out after she landed harshly into a jump split.
Following this, singer and producer A Triple R performed four songs to the audience and was cheered the entire time. Although many students didn’t know the words to his song, his passion was clear.
At the end of the show the models came back out to do a flash mob style bow before the e-board was introduced. But, due to more technical difficulties from the DJ, more than half the audience left. Despite this president and founder of House of Divinity, Justice Hall gave a speech expressing gratitude to all of her supporters.
“This is the first club that my name is actually on so to see the people who were here, people who are still here, this just makes me feel really good about what I do on this campus and I hope in the future more people can join,” Hall said.
