My Fashion Show Training Experience
I woke in a flurry of excitement early on Monday morning. It was finally happening! I was finally going to meet the people that I had worked alongside and gotten to know over the past two years! Not only that, the context in which we were meeting was a three-day training camp where we would learn about clothing, makeup and all things fashion! All in preparation for the Blind Beginnings Fashion show this October. This was something that I knew absolutely nothing about, having spent just about every day of my life in jeans and sneakers, but I was more than eager to learn.
The first thing that we did was go around the room and share our favorite clothing item. Already, it was becoming obvious that each person had their own unique sense of style. The rest of the day was filled with workshops and discussions about various aspects of fashion. Some of these included:
a Zoom call with Alexa Jovanovic, the creator of an accessible, beaded braille fashion brand called Aille Design. (How cool is that??)
A demonstration on shoes, complete with examples. (Who knew there were many different types of heels??)
And a presentation on makeup and skin care, where we learned about different products, their purposes, and possible ways to apply them with limited to no vision.
The second day meant the much anticipated trip to Metrotown, where we would pick out the outfits that we would be wearing at the Fashion Show on October 16th. Alongside a fantastic volunteer and armed with a gift card so kindly donated by Blind Beginnings, we had the chance to explore the mall for the perfect outfit. As someone not from the Vancouver area, the mere size of the mall was pretty overwhelming, I mean three floors? That’s insane! But after discussing roughly what I was looking for with my volunteer, she was able to help me find various stores that would have what I was looking for. Having one-on-one advice from somebody with a lot more fashion sense than myself was so helpful in finding my outfit.
After hearing what sort of thing people were looking for the previous day, I was pretty excited to see what everybody had picked out. Upon returning from the mall, we passed around the clothing items that we had each purchased, feeling the different textures and shoe shapes. From formal to floaty/summer to punk, everybody had their own, completely unique style!
On the final day of training, we learned how to walk the runway. Posture is important of course, but there were so many other aspects, such as camera angle, that I hadn’t even thought to consider. I’ll admit that I almost tipped over several times, and I wasn’t even wearing heels. We learned several different poses, and were given tips on how to show off the outfits that we would be wearing. I honestly had no idea that modeling was so difficult and so complicated!
Altogether it was a fantastic couple of days. I learned so much about fashion and had a great time connecting with all of my fellow participants. I can’t wait for the fashion show on October 16th and I hope to see you there!
by Acacia