Dressing to Impress: Cornell Fashion Collective Prepares for 41st Annual Spring Runway Show
56 designers. Approximately 180 models. Almost 2,000 attendees. One professional runway show. Entirely student run.
With less than a month to go, Cornell Fashion Collective is hard at work preparing for its 41st Annual Spring Runway Show on Saturday, March 22 in Barton Hall. Doors for the show will open at 6 p.m. and the show will begin at 7 p.m.
Led by co-presidents Julia Roos ’25 and Mattie Nguyen ’25 and assisted by faculty advisor and senior lecturer Kimberly Phoenix, CFC provides students with the opportunity to showcase their talent in fashion management and design. With over 180 club members, CFC represents all seven of Cornell’s undergraduate colleges and two graduate colleges.
Design Preparation
Behind the scenes, student designers tirelessly prepare their collections to present to the Cornell community. There are four levels of designers in CFC — one, two, three and four — and each level designs for a different number of models. Level one designers dress one model, this year adhering to the theme “all white.” Level two designers are responsible for two looks and work with two models. Level three designers dress four to six models and level four designers work with a range of six to 10 models.
Aside from level one, other designers do not follow an overarching theme, and there is no comprehensive theme for the spring show this year.
Raquel Coren ’25, a level four designer, said she spends the majority of her days in the studio working on her designs in the leadup to the show.
“I come to the studio before class, then I go to class, I maybe have some time to do a little bit of homework if I’m lucky and then I come back and I do it until I go to sleep,” Coren said. “I eat all my meals in this building. I do work like 24/7, but it’s also super fun cause we’re all in it together.”
Financial Sourcing
CFC finances their runway shows partly through ticket sales and gets the other half from their crowdfunding page. As of March 3, CFC raised $33,835 through the crowdfunding page and $14,850 in ticket sales, though they anticipate raising between $27,000 and $30,000 in total from ticket sales, according to Roos. CFC also receives money from the Student Activities Funding Commission.
Roos said the production invoice itself is $47,000 and the overall cost of the show, also including merchandise, posters and material, will likely end up being around $58,000. All the money raised goes towards all aspects of the show, including working with BSI Production to set up Barton Hall with the stage, lights, cameras and chairs.
“How intense [CFC] is is so unique to anything else. It’s more intense than a prelim or a final,” Roos said. “There’s like runway math that we have to do. The Excel spreadsheet for the timing breakdown is by second [for the whole show] from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., it’s all like ‘Lights down. Music up.’ It’s crazy.”
Model Selection and Training
In addition to the designers, student models diligently prepare their runway walks to showcase each designer’s creation. CFC holds an annual model call early in the fall semester, where applicants fill out a form and get their headshots taken. Runway director Susanna Burr ’27 then compiles all the information and puts together a lookbook for designers to sort through. Once designers have selected their models and model contracts have been signed, Burr begins working with them at ‘model boot camps.’
At these ‘model boot camps,’ Burr configures the classroom into a U-shape to match the shape of the runway, puts on music and has models practice their walks over and over again. She plays a BPM — beats per minute track — so models can practice the general pace they will be walking at during the show. Burr also makes sure models know how different runway walking is, teaching them how to walk with hips pushed forward, smile with your eyes and move your arms but “not too much.”
“I want this confidence to translate onto the runway, so I try to make the boot camps as much of a positive experience as I can,” Burr said. “I mean, in the spring, they [will be] walking in front of 2,000 people. So I try to do a balance of making sure that they know that, because this is a really big thing, but also like, ‘you can do this, you’re gonna look amazing, you know what to do,’” Burr said.
Jacqui Sparrow ’27, who is preparing to walk in her third Cornell Fashion Collective show this spring, recalled her preparation for her walk in her first spring runway show last year.
“[My designer] had a really interesting look where the dress transformed and I ended up needing to spin to make it fall correctly,” Sparrow said. “And so we would spend hours rehearsing that because I didn’t want to trip.”
Sparrow said she enjoys being exposed to new ideas through CFC.
“[I love] talking to Margaret [Watkins ’27], my designer, about what she’s doing and bouncing ideas off of her and asking ‘Why is this this?’” Sparrow said. “I’m very curious, and I just think it’s such a unique place to be and people to talk to, and I just appreciate the opportunity to be exposed to them.”
Burr spoke about how grateful she is that her role as runway director allows her to share the uniqueness of CFC with a diverse range of students across the University.
“It’s so nice to be able to have the position where I can bring in people like engineering students or business students — people on all corners of the campus — into this organization and let them have an idea of what it’s like to be part of it,” Burr said.
Even though Roos graduated early in December, she remained in Ithaca for the spring semester, fulfilling her role as president of CFC which she said has “always been [her] dream.”
“I think CFC brings together the Cornell campus a lot more than it does just highlighting fashion. I think everyone can contribute to this club no matter who they are,” Roos said. “I would hope that everyone in the audience can appreciate everything it took to get them in that chair, you know what I mean? No one would have a show without one part of the puzzle.”