MOTOWN WITH MODA

Student clothing designers and fashion aficionados revved up their creative skills and raised $2,000 for the Ford Warriors in Pink initiative.

DESIGNER KYLE SHANNON

Fashion merchandising student designer, Kyle Shannon, pictured altering his garments moments before them being modeled on the runway. Shannon, who graduated this April, won the evening’s ‘Best Styled Line’ award. A sold-out crowd of 300 students, families and community members came out for WMU’s Merchandising Opportunities and Design Association (MODA) spring fashion show with its Motown Fashion Show at the Gilmore Car Museum, supported by Seelye Ford. The event raised $2,000 for the Ford Warriors in Pink initiative and included a VIP experience among the classic cars inside the museum. The entire night was coordinated and executed entirely by students. “I’m just in awe of how Western and the opportunities I’ve had in the program have made me a better designer,” says Lekander, a fashion design student who will graduate in December. This is the second MODA fashion show she’s participated in, and this time she both showcased her own garments and played a lead role as designer chair. “When I first transferred to Western two years ago, I didn’t have any background in fashion design or the industry aside from sewing commercial patterns in my room for fun,” she says. “But over the past two years, I found all these different outlets connected to the industry.” The partnership with Warriors in Pink gave MODA an opportunity to get back to its roots; the organization was founded in 1998 by two fashion design students whose mothers both battled breast cancer. As a result, MODA’s first few shows in its early years also served as fundraisers for Susan G. Komen of Southwest Michigan. MODA began its partnership with Warriors in Pink in June 2021, when a recent alumna helped secure donations of hundreds of bandanas left over from the initiative’s fundraising campaigns for breast cancer patients through Susan G. Komen and the Pink Fund. Several student designers used those bandanas to construct their garments for the show. The focus on sustainability carried over from a fashion design course led by Dr. Mary Simpson, assistant professor. “She’s really taking that sustainability element and doing ‘zero waste,’” challenging students not to throw away anything or purchase any new materials, Morehead says. “Any extra fabric they used outside of the Ford scarves was fabric they already had in their personal collections through designing other garments.” Sustainability was also the focus of the most recent New York Fashion Week, which Samantha Morehead, MODA president, won the opportunity to attend in February through Western’s inaugural New York Fashion Week Competition. Grace Stibich, who won second place, will get her own behind-the-scenes experience at the event’s fall run in September. “Joining MODA my sophomore year was one of the best decisions I have made during my college experience. MODA has allowed me to grow as a person and leader. I have been pushed out of my comfort zone and am a better person because of it,” says Morehead, who graduated this April. “The memories I have made during my time in this organization I will forever cherish. I am so endlessly proud of the amazing experiences I have had in this organization, and I can’t think of a better way to say ‘goodbye’ following the absolute success of this year’s fashion show.”