Rowena Beatriz Gonzalez, senior design major, knows she underwent plenty of change in four years at WSU.
She originally had the idea of doing a collection of dresses that convey messages of revenge.
“It was a lot more difficult for me because I wasn’t really passionate about it,” Gonzalez said. “[I decided] to go back to my roots and why I wanted to become a designer to begin with. Which was focusing more on sustainability, which will be a huge focus in my collection.”
Even though the 2025 Parents Weekend Fashion Show is not until next semester, most senior designers have been thinking about their collections for quite some time and are now starting their prototypes.
For Gonzalez, that means it has been three years in the making.
“Nothing really solid, just a bunch of ideas that I thought would be, cool, creative concepts that I could convey. I didn’t really start narrowing it down or really getting serious about it until the summer of my junior year,” she said.
However, even though it is October, Alyss Pinget, a senior design major, said she is nervous but still excited about the show.
“The fact that the show’s in a couple of months is really exciting,” Pinget said. “Our pieces are going to be shown to a couple 1,000 people, which I’m excited for.”
The theme this year is Metanoia, a word in Ancient Greek meaning a concept of change in someone’s life, which each designer is incorporating into their collections.
“A change in mindset, a growth in yourself, in the world around you. And I honestly think the whole process of me deciding on my final collection, really embodies that that theme itself,” Gonzalez said.
Fabian Solano Tovar, senior design major, said this collection is a way for him to step out of his comfort zone.
“Overall, this collection is definitely something that is different from what I usually wear and what I’ve usually made in the past,” he said. “As well as acknowledging the amount of changes that I’ve done in planning this [his collection]. I feel that it’s a big thing.”
For the moment the designers’ focus is their prototypes. Right now they are playing around with fabric and silhouettes, which can take some time, Gonzalez said.
“It kind of helps that we have deadlines for each prototype, so that kind of keeps us on track and motivates us to come into the studio even after school hours. Which leads to a lot of sleepless nights, but I mean, overall, this is the major we all chose, and I think we’re pretty happy with our decision,” she said.
However it is not just designers who are starting their work. The merchandise majors are also working hard towards the fashion show.
Caden Blessing, merchandising major, has taken on the role of graphic design. He is working with the promotion team to create the graphics for Instagram and the fliers seen around campus, he said.
Even though the fashion show is for the designers showing their senior collection merchandising students are very much involved, Jeremiah Lara merchandising major said.
“It’s not required for merchandising students to do the production team, which I think it should be, because this gets us more involved in AMDT and the show,” Lara said.
Soon each designer will get their models as the last model call happened on Oct. 23 and model selection day is Nov. 13.
“Right now, it’s mainly prototyping, and soon we’ll start getting our models and then putting the prototypes on them. Then next month, we’ll mostly just start actually making the final product,” Pinget said.
