By Diana Zhu
On Thursday night, UC Davis’ Fashion and Design Society (FADS) kicked off Picnic Day’s first virtual fashion show, “Uncharted,” which was streamed and hosted on Twitch.
As it began, Olivia Siobhan, chief of marketing for FADS, briefly welcomed everyone to the event. Simon Sadler, chair of the design department, introduced the virtual fashion show presented by FADS.
FADS is a student-run organization created to support the fashion design students of the department of design.
This year’s students of Design 179 took inspiration from different walks of life and interpreted them into their own expressions.
Their fashion was presented in a video compilation of ten single garments and ten dynamic signature collections, with a live Q&A session with the designers following the show.
Presented first were single garments that ranged from practical outerwear to expressive dresses, such as Eduardo Daniel Jaimes’ versatile outerwear, “The Addeoru,” which they described as a “classy, fun, daring and timeless piece that anyone with a body could wear.”
Simone Haggerty’s “Renewal” repurposed old curtains and a sheet into a “simple, yet interesting” piece that includes the detail of a sewn line drawing.
Maitri Khan’s “Comfort” represented their quarantine experience of craving their comfort food.
“Maggi” was a yellow dress with the Maggi food packaging incorporated into it.
The single garments have an interesting take on quarantine life, and all are worth checking out at FADS’ website.
The media presentations of the collections by individual designers provided unique atmospheres that gave each piece character, coming to life as they are worn in settings that feel like they would not normally be worn.
Where a fashion show in-person takes places in one general professional setting, a virtual fashion show recorded from home made it difficult to truly capture the darker and more industrial feel of some collections, and others were accentuated to look brighter and more natural.
Darker collections such as “F.L.Y” by Qi Chen featured pieces inspired by design elements from traditional Chinese fashion and modern design in a dark neon party.
Brighter collections, such as Ingrid Yeung’s “Crystal Garden,” showcased playful and colorful pieces in a fairy-esque day in the fields.
Zhaoran Li’s “Adore” showcased their children’s garments with a little boy playing at the park. Pieces like this would not have the same effect if these collections were presented on the same stage.
The Q&A session that followed allowed the designers to talk about how the different circumstances affected their process, the things that were learned, how they felt about their projects and any other relevant information to understanding their pieces.
Even though it was not held in-person, this year’s annual FADS Picnic Day fashion show demonstrated not only the amazing creative talent of the designers at UCD, but also their remarkable media presentation skills.
The entire “Uncharted” event was recorded and can be streamed on Twitch at:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/989115016.
This year’s Picnic Day theme is “Discovering Silver Linings,” which explores how the UC Davis community has continued to find silver linings everywhere, despite all that has happened in this past year.
Diana Zhu is a fourth-year transfer student from Rancho Cucamonga, CA. She is majoring in Chinese and minoring in Professional Writing.
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