Arts & Culture

A Spectacle of Restrictive Fashion

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It’s less than an hour before doors open for Cornell Fashion Collective’s first show of the 2024-2025 academic year. Models backstage are delicately shoving chocolate Ferrero Rochers into their mouths, careful not to smudge their makeup. Designers are on their knees correcting their hems, sewing on ruffles and even drawing on their models’ skin. There is a quiet lull in which you can sense the animation in each and everyone’s actions. Though stressed, the aura is excited, even anticipatory.

collective

WANG | Scenes from a Delightfully Gutsy Fashion Show

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The lights are stripped back from the curtain, so the canvas is blank now — an empty, billowing mass of cloth that hangs behind the model runway. And then the music erupts: a shattering explosion of hyper percussion, thunder and a melody that seems to have been thrusted from the bubbling influence of Asian woodwinds. The pure fury of the drums sets the stage for the designer set. It’s loud, yet concise, pounding, yet razor sharp. I like it.