In preparation for their spring show, the Fashion II class hosted model castings today and Wednesday at 4 p.m. in room 1018. The model casting committee, a random selection of seven students from the advanced fashion class, organized the project.

“It’s going to be student-led,” committee member Reagan Argyle said. “Our Fashion II class is comprised of around 25 people, so it’s a pretty small class and it’s people that have an interest in fashion and want to be a part of the show. We have a fashion show committee, which was just a random drawing of a few of our people in our class to get an equal representation of what our designers want.”

This is the first year the Fashion II class held auditions for models and they did it to make the fitting process easier and more efficient for designers.

“We decided to do the model casting instead of picking our friends, which is what we usually do because our friends are usually really supportive, but because there are so many complications we wanted to make sure that the people who wanted to be models would be really compliant and be there when we needed them,” Argyle said. “We are also looking for certain brands for our designs.”

Although the fashion show won’t be until the spring, designers are already beginning to start their collections. The model casting committee gauged what each designer required for a cohesive lineup and advertised accordingly.

“We first had to think about who we wanted and what we wanted in models,” Megan Stelzer, committee member, said. “We had to make all the poster to go around the school and choose a date to set it (model casting) up. After that, we  had to set up the room.”

Interested models filled out a comprehensive Google form, providing information on their grade, height, body type, previous experience and included photos of themselves.

“Boys and girls are both welcome, all body types, all races, no discrimination,” Argyle said. “In order to be a model you needed to fill out the Google form and then you’re heading to either our Wednesday or Thursday model castings, which is going to be a walk through. You walk back and forth for three of our judges and you’ll do a quick interview process, just talking about what your personal style is, what you prefer wearing, if you’ve had any experience before and then well set you up with one of our designers and you’ll get to work with them face-to-face.”

The model casting committee hopes to use the auditorium for this years fashion show, since the previous setting didn’t showcase the clothing the way the students envisioned it.

“It’s usually in the gym, but we want to do it in the auditorium this year for better lighting purposes,”Argyle said. “We had a whole stage set up in the gym but because the lighting was so harsh and looked really bad for photography purposes. We are going to have models going on the stage and coming through the rows so you get that first hand experience, you can see how it actually looks and the stitching you can see that close to it so that’s why we’re doing it there.”

When giving advice to hopeful models in the casting process and even those selected, Seltzer emphasizes the need to stay true to oneself.

“Be confident,” Stelzer said. “Don’t be nervous. We are as nervous as you are and as stressed as you are, so just be confident and have fun.”

A theme for the fashion show isn’t selected as of now, but a wide array of styles and trends will walk the runway.

“There’s going to be some ready to wear looks, some Avant Garde looks, some that are out of the box and more of an art piece and some are going to follow basic trends that are happening,” Argyle said. “They are going to apply to all different age ranges as well, so it’s going to be interesting to see what we actually do.”

Various cinematic elements will enhance the fashion show experience and allow student designers to preserve their work for future endeavors, making the event one they can’t forget.

“I’m most excited for the end product,” Argyle said. “As a part of the fashion show committee, we’ve talked a lot about what we want as videos–we are going to have a video aspect to it, as well as photography–and getting the final product, to be able to create something that shows our personal design and style, which I think is really cool.”