Thinking of designs to display next year, Fashion Design III students have finished concepts and sketching for their mini-collections and are beginning the planning process.

“I was interested in the fashion program before I came here largely because of the fashion show and it’s great that we get to do it now,” junior Brooke Young said. “This will give me experience in pattern drafting, mood boards, and making our concepts come alive, which I will need later when I go to fashion school.”

Students began making a mood board for the collections in January, and then created designs, first by partnering up with other students, looking at each other’s boards and then making a design based on the other student’s collection inspiration.

“By making students create a mood board that reflects what their collection is going to look like and then giving that to a student for a first look and working collaboratively off that design someone else made based on their own inspiration, it forces you to think outside your box, and maybe design something for your collection that isn’t exactly how you imagined it,” Fashion Design teacher Levi Harbeson said. “It’s about compromise and working in the professional fashion industry is all about collaboration and compromise.”

Students also designed footwear, and although that part won’t be created in real life, their sketches will be shown along with their collections when they are made.

“The footwear adds a different element to the project,” junior Makenna Wahrer said. “It reminds us that you not only have to worry about the clothes themselves but also the styling and the accessories. Creating shoes just shows what we think is going to make our collection pop even more, even if it’s not what is on the runway.”

Although a fashion show isn’t confirmed, Harbeson is hoping for one to be created, especially considering that students have now missed roughly a year of sewing.

“At the end of the day, it’s a really nice professional piece that you get to show and say, I can draw, I can collaborate, I can take constructive feedback,” Harbeson said. “That’s something that, if you only learn one thing from the fashion program at Southwest, I want students to learn that they are creative, that they can work in a team, and that they can take constructive feedback and not have it cripple them.”