Ella March

from the sketchbook to the runway

From running around Bloomingdale’s on Michigan Avenue with her grandparents as a child to interning at the Institute of Fashion as a member of the Couture Team, Miami Palmetto Senior High senior Ella March has always had a love for all things fashion and design.

As a little girl growing up in Chicago, Illinois, March spent many summer days with her sister and grandmother shopping on the popular tourist street Michigan Avenue. Michigan Avenue, also known as Magnificent Mile, is a street home to many of the most well-known clothing stores and restaurants. One of her preferred stores was Bloomingdale’s, one she remembers getting lost in as she perused the rows upon rows of clothing.

“[It] quickly became my favorite place. I felt so at home in the building with all the clothing around me,” March said.

When March moved to Miami the summer before eighth grade, her parents decided that she and her sister should participate in a summer camp while they worked during the day. Aware of their daughter’s love for clothing and fashion, her parents sent her to a summer camp at the Institute of Fashion in Coral Gables, a place where she has spent much of her time refining her craft.

During her very first summer at the Institute of Fashion, she learned the ins and outs of creating clothing, from learning how to design to the proper techniques of cutting and sewing fabric.

After the summer camp, March began taking year-round classes at The Institute of Fashion, working towards a runway show that occurs twice a year during the winter and summer. Through these themed runway shows, students model and showcase their pieces. For her first show, the theme was “London,” so she decided to create a look inspired by the Disney film, “Mary Poppins.” While taking classes at the Institute of Fashion, March received an invitation at the beginning of her freshman year to join the Couture Team. Her work with the Couture Team added on to what she learned in her classes, teaching her store management skills, how to work with clientele, how to design and create couture pieces like ball gowns.

“I learned more about how to manage a store,” March said. “I’ll be in fittings for brides and standing there holding pins or fabric for them to hold… I’ll see more of the behind the scenes for an actual business.”

In addition to her time at the Institute of Fashion, March also spent a summer in Wynwood interning for Danny Santiago, the costume designer famous for his work styling the “Sex and the City” movie series and the shows “Burn Notice,” “Graceland” and “Ballers.”

“I spent eight hours a day for my whole summer sitting in that warehouse, just basically curating every single item of clothing in there,” March said. “He had a bunch of old Givenchy dresses and stuff like that, and it was just super cool to see everything.”

When not at the sewing machine or putting together a mood board, you can find her participating in a multitude of on-campus activities and clubs. March previously participated in Palmetto’s History Bowl team and served as a board member of her temple’s youth program. She also dove for the University of Miami’s club diving team and last year for Palmetto’s varsity diving team. Currently, she sits on her senior class cabinet and also serves as the secretary of the Health Information Project (HIP). This year, however, March decided to bring her love of fashion to school.

For her senior year, March decided to take stagecraft with Palmetto’s drama instructor Robin Barson. She originally placed in the top-level stagecraft class and expected to make costumes for the theatre shows this year. However, due to COVID-19, all levels of stagecraft became part of a combined class and the students have had to find new ways to work both creatively and collaboratively.

“It’s a class that has four grades in it… so there’s a lot of mentorship,” Barson said. “The new students are generally being mentored by the older students so in their first year in stagecraft they learn a little bit of all the different areas. They do a project in costume design, a project in publicity and a project in set design. Then they start to find their area and gravitate towards that area and get mentored in that area.”

After a discussion in class, Barson persuaded March to enter the costume construction category of the District 8 Thespians Festival. She dove deep into the world of musical theatre and chose the play “Crybaby” to base her costume on. Creating the costume became quite a difficult task, as she received her fabric days before the deadline, but miraculously turned the dress in on time for scoring.

“I had to make the dress in five days and it was so stressful… Ms. Barson was just super supportive, and everybody in that class is so sweet. They all help you with anything you need,” March said. “Then, I submitted my dress and I ended up getting a 25 out of 30 from one judge and a 29 out of 30 from another judge.”

Coming from a primarily couture and runway background, March had to learn how to dress and build a costume for theatre, which she had never had any experience with before.

“Ella was doing more couture designs and she showed me a bunch of those, and I’ve seen how skilled she is. But, to have to pivot from that and figure out how you are going to design a costume is very different,” Barson said. “It is different when designing a costume, making sure that the costume tells a story and that the costume has the right things for the stage and the right colors for the stage and that there are different elements on it that represent things.”

Through the process of designing a costume for theatre, March learned the importance of symbolism in her piece. Drawing from a “gang” that the main character Alison joins to win the heart of the rebel, Crybaby, in the “Crybaby” play, March incorporated elements into her costume which paid homage to those characters. The added detail specifically accentuates the role of the girls of the “gang,” known as “The Teardrops.”

“The girl group is called ‘The Teardrops’ and Ella picked up on that and ordered little burgundy teardrop shaped beads and had those on the bottom of her costume,” Barson said. “That’s something that a fashion designer doesn’t usually do. That’s something that she had to figure out how to do because your costume has to help tell the story. I was so impressed with her ability to tell that story.”

Barson has become one of March’s most inspirational teachers and someone she credits as a main supporter of her designs and garments.

“I think [March] is a really, really gifted young lady that is smart, creative and coupled with her talent, compassion and her drive - that’s something that really stands out to me in students. I love to see a student who is pursuing something that they are really passionate about, that they are open to new ideas and they’re not just set in their ways and appreciate learning new things and having new challenges and rising to that, and I see that with Ella,” Barson said.

As of now, March remains unsure of which school she plans to attend after she graduates, but knows that she wants fashion to play a role in her future.

“It seems like a career path I could potentially go down,” March said. “Some people know they want to be doctors, and I could see myself being a doctor, but I know I wouldn’t have fun being a doctor; I’d have fun working in fashion.” Angelina Astic Copy Editor

a.astic.thepanther@gmail.com Tomas Curcio Staff Writer t.curcio.thepanther@gmail.com PHOTOS COURTESY OF ELLA MARCH DESIGN BY JULIA STRASIUS