On March 23, the University Centre Atrium turned into a runway for fashion enthusiasts to raise awareness and money for a local mental health organization, YouthNet.
Fashion show attendee and first-year Carleton student Megan Pannozzo was excited to see that the evening also featured youth mental health promotion.
The fashion show fundraised for YouthNet, with the goal of art helping mental health.
“It’s great to celebrate art and creativity, with an even bigger purpose,” says Pannozzo.
Coming together and putting on an annual fashion show, Giuliana Taccone, Carleton Couture co-president and show organizer, said the club has grown to be a lot more than just that.
Each year they host a fashion show, bringing designers together with student models for collaboration.
This year’s show was titled “Expressions,” referring to the creative expressions of fashion, music, and art. This year, they also hosted a raffle to fundraise for mental health.
The evening featured fashion from Michele Taccone, Artless, 1 OF A MILLION, and Carleton student Timor Dahi, with the jazzy folk band Champagne Sunday there to entertain the audience in between collections.
Dahi, a Carleton third-year computer science student, said he discovered his love of fashion at a young age by helping his mother sew buttons. He got involved with Carleton Couture in his first year and was thrilled to hear that this show would be incorporating more designing and less styling than years past.
“My entire collection is based off of cults and religions, so I go off old Catholic literature, visit churches, and look at paintings,” he said. There is a lot of work that goes into designing a collection, and balancing academics and his passions can sometimes be difficult, he added.
“I’ve put over 400 hours into these clothes. I have some knits in there, and each takes 40 hours to make, but I’ve been learning my whole life,” Dahi said.
He also operates a small business selling his clothes online.
Organizing a show like this one is an equal undertaking.
“We thought we wanted to do something different this year, and pick the most creative people we could find,” Giuliana said.
Michele Taccone is her father, so the show also had a personal touch for her.
“These were the clothes that I saw as a kid that inspired me to get into fashion,” she says.
Carleton Couture’s annual fashion show “Expressions” has successfully brought people together from all backgrounds and ages to foster individual confidence and, fittingly, express themselves through fashion.
Image by Yousef Abdel Rahman
