Members of WSU’s student-run fashion magazine, Luxe, have been working hard to adapt to the online semester.

Students produce and piece together all of Luxe’s content, which makes it a great way to hone creative skills as well as layout and writing skills, said Jansen Garside, Luxe editor-in-chief and senior Apparel, Merchandising, Design and Textiles major.

The semester usually starts with getting together and brainstorming ideas for the semester’s issue, Jessica Parsons, Luxe junior editor-in-chief and junior humanities major, said. From there, they pare it down to a few ideas that fit well together, then work out the creative execution.

The topics Luxe covers vary widely. In their Spring 2020 issue, they covered topics ranging from microfiber pollution to neo-punk style to the effects of brutalist architecture on fashion.

The diversity of ideas represents the diversity of the people in the club and the worlds they come from, Mikayla Makle, Luxe copy editor and junior English major, said.

Last semester, Makle’s neo-punk spread  — of which she was the creative director, stylist and hair stylist — became the cover of the issue.

“It was based off a lot of my own creative and fashionable notes — of being punk and goth and things of that nature,” Makle said.

Self-expression is a large part of Luxe’s appeal. Students who join the club usually have one or more strengths, and Luxe allows them to work exclusively in the area they love, whether it be makeup, styling or design, Garside said.

“I think the great thing about Luxe is that … it functions not only as a creative outlet, but a great resume builder, especially for someone like me who wants to do pretty much exactly what I’m doing at Luxe — I can say that I’ve had experience in this very position before,” Parsons said.

Garside said with the changes this semester, Luxe is reimagining itself for the short and long term. With so much of Luxe’s production done through teamwork, the executive board is working out measures to ensure their members’ safety.

Photoshoots will be limited to the minimum people necessary, Garside said. Makeup artists will wear gloves, and everyone will wear masks and social distance to the best of their ability. Temperatures will be taken upon arrival.

“It’s going to be interesting to see what everyone brings to the table this semester, but we’re definitely going to be pushing for safety through the whole thing,” Garside said.

Another idea they’re playing with is printing just once this year, instead of once per semester, he said. The year’s magazine would come out next semester around Mom’s Weekend. Doing this could allow them to release a much larger issue, using the money that would’ve gone to the fall semester’s issue to increase the size of the spring’s.

Funding for Luxe comes from a combination of membership dues, roughly $8 per semester in the past, and profits from magazine sales. Historically, issues of Luxe were sold online and in-person in the weeks leading up to the Mom’s Weekend Fashion Show. Garside said they expect to do online orders only this year, but nothing has been finalized yet.

While it’s registered as an AMDT club, Luxe is open for anyone to join, Parsons said. She and Makle are both examples of students from outside majors coming to find a home in Luxe.

Meeting topics flow from the start of the semester until close to production, Parsons said.

“In the past, we have done little workshops for people to kind of work on how to write copy or how to brainstorm ideas for their shoots,” Parsons said. “We kind of moved away from that into using most of our meeting time to brainstorm our content, and figure out what models we should use.”

While the executive team is still working out the details of when and how often meetings will occur this semester, Makle said in the past the team would meet once every other week.

Garside recommends interested students follow the Luxe Instagram for announcements and updates.

“We definitely want people to join, we want people to be a part of this,” Makle said. “You do not have to have experience in fashion or makeup or hair or anything like that – we want everybody to come.”

Previous issues of Luxe can be viewed on their Issuu page.