With Milan fashion week coming to a close this week and New York fashion week taking place earlier this month, Nicholls State University is getting its own injection of fall fashion.
The Nicholls State University chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will be hosting a “Phresh out the Runway” themed charity fashion show on Thursday, Sept. 26, from 7-9 p.m. with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. in the Cotillion Ballroom of the Bollinger Memorial Student Union. This will be the third fashion show hosted by the NAACP.  
Shanerrika Glover, marketing junior and president of the campus chapter of the NAACP, expects great things for this year’s show and predicts that it will be bigger than ever before.
The NAACP is opening doors to the fashion industry for models that are participating in the show. According to Jezebel, a feminist blog, 20 percent of the models used in New York Fashion Week were minorities with only 8 percent of the models being black. White models that worked at fashion week made up 79.9 percent of the total number of models who worked this season. This does not surprise Glover. “They [the fashion industry] still cannot see the beauty in them [minorities],” she said.
“To be honest, it’s 2013 but there’s not much difference between long ago,” Glover said. “We are still living in those kinds of days: there’s still racism, there’s still favoritism, there’s still all of those things.”
“The media doesn’t show a lot of African-Americans in a beautiful light. They always show them twerking or doing anything derogatory,” Glover said. “It makes it hard for other people to see them as beautiful when you are only seeing them on TV as starving in their country or just anything other than beautiful.”
About 25 models were selected during the beginning of the school year after a school-wide casting call was held. Models will also be competing within the fashion show based on how they style each look. They will be judged on their walk, style and the overall energy they bring to the runway. The models that place second and third will win a photo shoot. The model who wins first place will win a gift bag filled with items from the show and a photo shoot.
The show will feature about 13 different fashion lines from the Houma-Thibodaux area. Boutiques such as Juju’s from Houma will also be featuring ensembles in the show. Jeremy Smith, general studies senior and Nicholls basketball player, created 118 Clothing, which will also be featured in the show. The show will center on urban and causal wear. Glover described urban wear as something “you wouldn’t go to work in it but you could hang with your friends in it.”
Glover explained that the fashion show will “be this big exciting party during homecoming week.” Walter Johnson who is the brother of Antonia “Toya” Wright, star of the reality shows Toya: A Family Affair and Tiny and Toya, and his wife Latosha Johnson will attend. There will also be a performance by 19 year old R&B singer Kourtney Heart, who is a native of New Orleans. Other performances include singer Andrew Carter, general studies senior from Thibodaux, and a spoken poetry performance by Shequila Hamilton, a student at Louisiana State University. Andre “Real” Davis, a Thibodaux artist, will also be performing.
After the show, attendees will have the opportunity to purchase and place orders on some of the looks that were seen on the runway. Vendors will be set up in the back of the ballroom and items will range from accessories to items of clothing. Glover encourages students to support local vendors instead of spending their money elsewhere, such as online shopping.
Glover would like student to have fun when dressing to attend the show. “I want people to dress like they are in the fashion show,” Glover said. “Wear all that stuff that is in your closet that you don’t have anywhere to wear it. Wear all of the crazy stuff you don’t have a chance to wear any other time of the year.”
Admission is five dollars for all college students, regardless of the university they attend, who have a student I.D. General admission is seven dollars with admission for children being three dollars. Proceeds will go to the Dr. Cleveland Hill Scholarship Fund, a scholarship awarded on a semester basis to undergraduate and graduate students.