Required to market and host an event on campus or in the surrounding community for their final, students in Corey Blake’s digital marketing class (ENTR 285) held a fashion show in HGB 275 on Apr. 6 that promoted local brands created by students.
Aleigha Noney, a business management major in her first semester from Australia, said, “I thought having a fashion show would be a good opportunity since a lot of us had clothing labels or ideas to create clothing labels. It was a way for us to be able to do that and demonstrate our work in a fun setting.”
Kenzie Manning, a freshman from Nevada studying entrepreneurship, said her group was trying to come up with an idea for their project when they thought “it would be great to do a fashion show to show local brands to support kids who go to our school and do something that’s never been done before.”
Both Noney and Manning own their own clothing brands. Manning said, “I wanted to participate in this fashion show to get my brand out there and to also support local brands in the community.” Noney said, “I participated with my brand Aleigha the Label, and it was really cool for me to see my stuff out on the catwalk. It was cool for a lot of people in America to see my stuff since a lot of people in Australia are the only ones who have seen it.”
A lot of local people don’t often get to attend fashion shows and experience local brands, according to Noney.
The most difficult part of planning the event was being on an island as college students, the two students said. Noney added, “The most difficult part would have to be because we all had a vision of what we wanted it to be like, but because we’re college students, we didn’t have a lot of resources to help it come into fruition. But I think we did a good job.”
Hayden Crowell, a sophomore from Utah whose brand was featured in the event, said, “I just started [a] ring business and Kenzie was asking me if I wanted to be a part of it. At first, I said no, but then I said, ‘Alright, I’ll do it.’” The show has been a benefit to his company, he said. “I’ve had a couple people who have come to me from it that have wanted to buy rings.”
Crowell, a social work major, said he saw a market for rings in Hawaii and explained how as a college student it’s hard to make money, so he took the opportunity and went with it. However, he said it was sort of difficult to have his brand in the event.
Although the announcers accidentally forgot to announce Crowell’s brand, he said, “It was good enough that I would definitely do it again.”
Quinn Tolson, a freshman from California majoring in information systems, also helped plan the event and said, “I thought the whole process of planning the event was pretty neat. We all brainstormed together about different ideas of what would work and what wouldn’t.”
He also stated, “The fact that—at least for me—this was the first time we had ever planned something like this, so the inexperience we had planning it was the least beneficial part of it. But I think, for the future, this event helped for our future planning with other ones.”
Writer: Ally Pack