Cultural Couture

Lavieties Pavilion, Annenberg Hall, and Northwest Science Building are not exactly obvious venues for the blaring music and flashing lights of your average fashion show. The models are not from the pages of Nylon or the set of America’s Next Top Model, but from the room next door and your Wednesday section. Nonetheless Eleganza, Identities and Project East annually take advantage of these spaces for fashion shows to raise funds for charity and alter the perceptions of minority communities on campus.

Operating under the umbrella organization of Black Community and Student Theater (Black C.A.S.T.), Eleganza—which takes place this coming Saturday, April 24—stands as the oldest and most established show at sixteen years old. Recently, two more fashion shows with specific ties to minority communities debuted: Identities and Project East. Under the auspices of the Asian-American Association (AAA), Identities constructed its latest runway and show in Annenberg this past Saturday, presenting its first annual Leadership in the Arts Award to acclaimed Asian-American designer Vera Wang. The more independent Project East put on its most recent show in November 2009 to exhibit the work of exclusively Asian and Asian-American student and professional designers.

Eleganza, Identities, and Project East all participate in worldwide trends of cultural appropriation in couture, but they also redefine the relationship between fashion and the minority community. The particular aesthetic goals of these shows vary based on the nature of their individual relationships with ethnic communities on campus—yet all three remain committed to pursuing charitable ends despite funding complications. The product is a wholly new breed of fashion show.

INTRINSIC TO THE INDUSTRY

A certain degree of cultural hybridization appears inherent in many designers’ projects. Modern fashion has been inextricably tied with appropriation—the browsing of and borrowing from other cultures and time periods. Until recently, this meant mainly European couture houses and designers adopting and tweaking patterns, techniques, and textiles from other regions.

The terms of appropriation have changed and become more varied and complex with globalization, according to Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) Professor Giuliana Bruno, who teaches VES 285x, “Visual Fabrics: Film, Fashion and Material Culture.” One type of appropriation is a sustained dialogue—or positive tension—between different cultures and experiences that creates something new and vibrant. For Bruno, this cultural synthesis is significant because it shows a society’s and an industry’s willingness to come to terms and engage in dialogue with changing times.

Jacqueline M. Boltik ’11, who sits on the board of the Harvard Vestis Council—a student organization devoted to exhibiting Harvard student designs—would agree. Although Vestis itself has no specific ties to minority communities, Boltik can understand the aesthetic sense behind these connections. “Even if you look at major designers and their influences for a certain design or collection, it comes from different cultures and perspectives,” she says. “They’re not necessarily bringing a focus on diversity or minorities, but making use of a practice of the industry. Maybe, the two are even inseparable. In this sense, I think this collaboration between minority groups and fashion is just a natural fit.”

Eleganza, Identities, and Project East engage in the same kind of cultural synthesis on a smaller scale. By interweaving the minority communities and the fashion industry, these three shows disengage the former from its customarily passive role as a source of influence for the latter. They carve a new, active role for their respective communities to influence the perception and message of fashion on campus.

THE MESSAGE SEWN IN

Each show independently seeks to redefine fashion from the Eurocentric and narrow-minded industry that it has been. “When you think of fashion, you think of wealth and skinny white models on a runway. I think fashion can be isolating and not easily relatable for a lot of people,” says Angela Su ’12, one of three executive producers of Eleganza.

In an attempt to include the entire student population, Eleganza itself showcases diversity in both its featured cultural performances and the race, sexuality, and body type of its models. This year the show will open with the Asian-American Dance Troupe and close with a step performance from the Black Men’s Forum and the Association of Black Harvard Women. By uniting various forms of the arts, Eleganza aims to be a dazzling multicultural show rather than a presentation of fashion alone.

Though the event will showcase more couture pieces than in previous years, much of the clothing can be worn on an everyday basis—particularly pieces donated by well-known designers like Nicole Miller—according to Beatrice H.N. El-Hage ’11, the executive producer responsible for fashion.

Carmen V. Feliz-Taveras ’11, another executive producer, says, “I think more people see fashion as a voice for everyone and anyone. It’s something that is tangible. Everyday you can wake up and get dressed, giving yourself a means to express yourself.”

While Eleganza seeks to democratize fashion, Project East tries to maintain and celebrate its elusive haute couture nature. The designers are either high-end stars like Derek Lam and Vera Wang or students at the prestigious art colleges Parsons, The New School for Design, or Rhode Island School of Design. These clothes represent avant-garde thesis projects of student designers and the seasonal collections that debut on fashion capital runways.

“It is more of a platform through which extremely talented individual designers could express themselves than the collective expression of the community,” says Tamara J. Harel-Cohen ’10, a co-producer this year.

Project East turns its sights on another industry stereotype: that Asian designers only make Asian clothing. “This is clearly generalizing and stereotyping, but I feel like when people think of an Asian designer, they assume dragons and kimonos,” says Kristin S. Kim ’09, co-founder. “That’s an inherent quality of Asian cultural fashion, but I think what Project East does is bring forth people who happen to be Asian and who are designers in mainstream America—making clothing not for an Asian audience or trend, but for what is now.” Along the same lines, the other co-founder Timothy M. Parent ’09 says, “everybody has a unique perspective and experience so the community should not be portrayed as this singular homogenous group.”

More subtly, Identities makes the Asian-American experience an undercurrent to multiple segments of the show. The clothes are from a broad spectrum of sources: student designers, local thrift stores, Harvard Square and Boston boutiques, and national brands that are not necessarily connected to the minority community.

On the surface, the two creative directors’ segments of the show—an exploration of the growing phenomenon of androgyny and a fanciful study of the college campus in thirty years—appear similarly detached from cultural roots. “Both have this futuristic theme, but both also look at what it means to be Asian in this structure,” says Nara M. Lee ’11, co-producer of Identities, adding that the directors looked closely at Asian design and fashion history during the creative process.

Though originally conceived as a direct portrayal of Asian-American experience—the first show being partly set in San Francisco’s Chinatown—Identities has developed a different relationship with this community in the past two years. Another creative director Jane Chun ’12, a Crimson magazine comper, says she partly used fashion to respond to the current social, political, and economic climate. “Why do women want to dress this way? Why are certain trends occurring? These greater questions extend from fashion to a much larger stage. Yes, fashion is a reflection of self, but it is also a reflection of the world and our relationship to the world.”

WEAVING A FOUNDATION

Before shows can even try to answer these greater questions, each group must garner attention, secure creative participation and, of course, raise money. The three shows face two main challenges in finding funding on campus: none is a stand-alone organization, and all find themselves unable to apply for Undergraduate Council grants due to their charitable status. These shows thus find themselves obligated to look beyond the obvious sources for financial support.

Within an increasingly crowded and competitive field of student groups, these fashion shows find their affiliations with cultural organizations and institutions a great financial asset. Last fall Project East, committed to remaining an entirely Asian-American and Asian enterprise, was sponsored by the Reischauer Institute, which supports research on Japan, and the Korea Institute. Says Harel-Cohen, “there are these very big student organizations associated with minorities. We were linked to different Asian organizations on campus because they can raise the money. It’s much easier to do it from that framework than to just decide to put on a fashion show.”

Similarly, the Harvard China Winter Service Program is one of a dozen sponsors for Identities this year. “A lot of these places actually sponsor us because we are Asian-American,” says Lee.

By now, Eleganza can lean more on its establishment; it regularly attracts over 1,500 students each year, books stars like Jadakiss and Fabolous, and garners national attention—as the April 2010 issue of Teen Vogue demonstrates. Olamide E. Oladipo, an associate producer for Eleganza who oversees finances, points to their reputation as a draw for potential sponsors. “Companies have either heard of us before when we reached out to them five years ago or have never heard of us before, but trust us and are impressed when they see the long list of our past sponsors.”

Unlike the other two shows, Eleganza does not receive funding through their connection with Black C.A.S.T. “They are our formal umbrella, but we don’t really have financial ties to them,” Oladipo says. Still, Eleganza’s multicultural make-up can still attract sponsors. “For companies that are looking for diversity recruiting, they are really interested in our models so we give them resume books with profiles of all our executives and models,” she adds.

While ties with minority communities can help these shows raise funds, their charitable goals can become ironic obstacles to raising the money that these lavish nights require. The Undergraduate Council (UC) decided recently to make charitable fundraising events ineligible for grants.

With dim prospects for UC funding, these fashion shows turn to outside sources for financial support—sources that find charitable impulses a pull for funding rather than a drawback. “I think when you have an organization that caters to minority or underrepresented students, there’s usually a cause attached. Since they are either donating to charity or helping out underrepresented students, companies are more willing to sign on,” says Farah S. Qadar ’10, the president of the Association of Minority Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs (AMBLE), which recently organized and hosted a conference on the Fashion, Media, and Entertainment Industries. Oladipo also notes the charitable aspect of Eleganza as an advantage in finding funding. “For some, the charity aspect is the reason why they donate to us,” she says.

The profits from Eleganza annually go to the Center for Teen Empowerment, which equips and encourages young adults to enact positive change in their communities in the Boston area. Likewise, this year Identities donated their profits to Artists For Humanity, which seeks to reduce socioeconomic and racial divisions by empowering underprivileged kids with paid employment in the arts in Boston. Project East, however, was the only show of the three to donate directly back to the community which supported them: in 2009, profits went to the China Tomorrow Education Fund to help build a school in rural China.

The charitable impulse itself, however, is derived from a more optimistic sentiment among the boards of these fashion shows; altruism seems to override ineligibility for UC grants. “It’s more than just having a show and ending; we want to make a political statement and demonstrate that we can do good through fashion,” Lee says of Identities.

WRAPPED WITH A BOW

For Parent, who is still very much involved with Project East from his fashion post in Shanghai, the charity status is important for more personal reasons. “It was also a good way for me to give back to [my community] and to help promote my own ethnic group, their talent and credibility, in an industry that doesn’t really appreciate that—or at least didn’t when I started in 2006.”

While Eleganza, Project East and Identities define their relationships with minority communities on unique terms, Parent’s sentiment seems to resonate for all three of these fashion shows. As designers borrow inspiration from respective outside communities to create their clothes for market or school, these three shows return the favor—making use of couture to serve the ethnic communities at Harvard and beyond in both social and charitable ways.

­—Staff writer Kristie T. La can be reached at kla@fas.harvard.edu.