Wanna Be on Top?

On Saturday May 3, Stanford put on its annual Charity Fashion Show. This year’s show was to benefit Médecin Sans Frontière, or Doctors Without Borders. SPEACK (Students Promoting Ethnic and Cultural Kinship) hosted the Charity Fashion Show. With these things in mind, I knew that I was in store for much more than an upbeat display of haute couture.
The show started over thirty minutes late. Obviously the irony of being fashionably late comes to mind, but I must admit, for me, thirty minutes is way past the line of being “cute.” The room was packed! I could hardly find a seat, and when I did I realized that I could barely see over the heads of those in front of me. Thank goodness models are much taller than I am! In classic, contemporary fashion shows, there is a strict set-up to which one must adhere. The runway comes straight down the middle with chairs facing each of the three exposed sides. The coordinators of the show matched the high-fashion runway set up to a T, equipped with lights, cameras, and with the added bonus of screens to show various visual mediums.
The show started with a video of each of the work that went behind the show coupled with individual shots of each model, striking a pose of course. The whole time I had an incredibly tempting urge to sing, “Wanna be on top?” the theme song to America’s Next Top Model. The CFS did not try to hide that it was emulating this concept, and I think it did this on purpose. I immediately felt the surge of adrenaline and excitement that I feel when watching the popular reality show, and I believe the coordinators were counting on the audiences’ familiarity with ANTM in order to gain credibility from the beginning. It also allowed the hosts to make a cheesy joke about The Charity Fashion Show being a competition, and cheesy jokes are always nice, right?
The first part of the show was actually my favorite part of the show. The male models wheeled out the female models on clothes racks, carried them, and rolled them along as though they were store mannequins. The women were incredible at looking fake, and it definitely added a level of showmanship and originality that I found refreshing. After this, all the models began to dance. I think the coordinators were trading on the idea that the dance would shake things up and make the set the show apart from what we conceive as a fashion show. I think it did that. The dancing was enthusiastic, and sultry, and all good fashion adjectives; I’m just not sure that it was necessary.
I think that what naturally set the show apart was its message, namely that of charity and that of ethnic and cultural kinship. The spokespeople of SPEACK came out to talk about other events that they had done and why they feel it is important to sponsor the show, and a sophomore came up to speak about her art project in the lobby. The project highlighted recreated photos of various acts of intolerance performed on campus and asks us to think about whether we actually are a diverse, integrated community. The CFS used it wide audience and large draw in order to engage us in an important thought process about our community, while simultaneously supporting a great organization. Although the clothes, the dancing, the strutting, were all fabulous and delicately done, I think the most important thing was what they emphasized the most, the charity.