“The Future of Fashion,” the annual end-of-semester showcase by the UTRGV House of Fashion Club, explores the past, present and future all with the central theme of sustainability.
In collaboration with the Edinburg Cultural Arts division, the fashion show starts at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Dustin Michael Sekula Memorial Library as part of the Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros festival. Admission is free.
HOF is a student-based collective of art, fashion, music and culture for which student leaders organize fashion shows at the end of every semester, according to its website. The club regularly holds thrift sales on campus.
Maria Regina Montemayor, a business administration senior and HOF president, told The Rider the whole concept of “The Future of Fashion” show is about sustainability.
“We want to raise awareness for slow fashion and more sustainable fashion practices,” Montemayor said. “We believe that you … can have a lot of self-expression while still being very conscious about the planet. You don’t necessarily have to buy the trendiest, newest thing all the time.”
The fashion show is separated into three phases: the past, present and future. Each phase has outfits that depict what the future might look like to people during that time period.
“If you go back in time and if you were to have this conversation with somebody that was raised in the ’60s, and you ask them, ‘Hey, what does the future look like to you?’ They’re probably going to say, ‘I see flying cars; I see innovative homes and robots and AI and PVC dresses,’” Montemayor said. “… If you time travel to our present and … you ask your friends, ‘Hey, what does the future look like to you?’ [They’re] probably gonna say, ‘Oh, it looks scary. It looks post-apocalyptic. It looks like gas masks and chemical spills and war and famine.’”
She said the present phase of the fashion show is more about what people can do today to help tomorrow.
“We’re going to have our fashion designers bring out some models with designs that they have created out of unconventional materials,” Montemayor said. “So, there’s this one dress that’s made out of bottle caps. There’s another one that’s made out of, like, smashed metal. Just, like, all these recycled materials to create these really cool reworked outfits, which is kind of where we’re at today.”
The show has 37 people helping and more than 20 models will be featured. Most of the models have an outfit in the three phases.
English junior and HOF creative director Zaiah Treviño told The Rider he is excited to show audience members the outfits, theme of the fashion show and also the message that it conveys.
“It’s not only about the clothes and the fashion … but it’s also about the message we’re trying to, like, put across about sustainability,” Treviño said.
Describing the past phase of the fashion show as nostalgic, vintage and colorful and the future phase as melodramatic and neutral colored, Treviño said his favorite is the present phase since he has two outfits featured in it.
Treviño said one of the outfits he designed pulls inspiration from the Disney Channel show “Wizards of Waverly Place.”
“The comic book dress that [Selena Gomez] wears, well, I’m doing, like, an interpretation of that but, like, with Vogue magazines,” he said.
Joel Angel Garza, a civil engineering junior and model in “The Future of Fashion,” is participating in two phases, the past and the future.
“I think [the fashion show] will be fantastic,” Garza said. “Everyone [in HOF] has been putting in so much hard work … and I can tell that the people putting it together are very dedicated.”
Taking part in the show for the first time, Garza said he thinks diversifying his experiences is great for growing as a person and encourages students from all kinds of disciplines to do so as well.
“A lot of people think that engineers are unstylish or not good in the arts,” he said. “But I want to change that point of view, and [show] that engineers can be stylish and they can be well-invested in the arts.”
For updates on the fashion show or the club, follow its Instagram @utrgvhof.
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