CU Couture hopes to stay in style with its first full year

While fashion fever will soon sweep New York City with Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, on campus, style is making its comeback in a subtler way.

On Wednesday night, Columbia's first fashion club, CU Couture, made a grand entrance with its first meeting of the semester. Formed at the end of the 2008-2009 school year, but not active until September 2009, the club barely predates Hoot Magazine.

CU Couture is not yet an official club, but group leaders intend to apply for official status at the end of this semester. The idea for CU Couture came to the club's president, Alice Zhang, CC '12, after she had the chance to work backstage at Fashion Week. It was there that she realized that, as Zhang said, "fashion isn't only limited to skinny models or creative designers—there is a place for everyone."

The club's mission statement states that its intent to "highlight fashion's accessibility to students and its importance in students' everyday lives." This begs the question of what, exactly, this importance is, especially when it comes to high fashion.

"Busy college students don't have that many ways to express ourselves," said CU Couture's Editorial Team Director Jina Lim, CC '13. "Fashion is an everyday expression of yourself, and you don't have to sacrifice a lot of effort or time."

Some who aren't fashion mavens appreciate what CU Couture is bringing to the student body. "I'm not to into fashion," Natasha Marks, SEAS '12, said, "but they are pulling together a group with interests that was dispersed across campus."

The organization appears to be on a one-event-per-semester track. The club held a "Fashion Week Back Stage Pass" runway show in October and is planning a second, larger fashion show for later this spring.

While the first show focused on ways of styling clothes, the spring show will turn its attention to the design of the clothes themselves. No designers are confirmed yet, but CU Couture plans to gather clothing from student designers at Columbia, Parsons, and FIT.

"I was sad that student designers don't get recognized for their great work," Zhang said. "I want CU Couture to help them learn and gain their confidence."