Marist Students Involved in Local Sustainable Fashion Show — MARIST CIRCLE

Various fashion lovers gathered in Red Hook, New York on Sept. 27 for a night of outdoor couture full of fall vibes. 

The second annual Hudson Valley Sustainable Fashion Show took place on Rose Hill Farm, surrounded by apple trees, live music, handcrafted cocktails and sustainable clothing vendors selling ready-to-wear items. 

The outdoor runway featured locally designed looks with styles ranging in fun patterns, textures and many different styles of clothes, such as evening wear, lingerie and denim patchwork sets. 

Viewers sat on a long grass strip as models and designers walked the silent runway, with birds chirping into the warm September sundown. This year, two Marist College alumni, Gavin Cooper ‘24 and Deanna McNally ‘24, had their designs featured in the show. 

“To be a part of an outdoor fashion show has been on my bucket list, so this was a big thing for me,” said Cooper. “I also think that getting a big collection of sustainable designers showing the public how you can use sustainability in many different ways is great.”

“A lot of my materials were upcycled from Marist’s fabric sources that we got donated to us from Ralph Lauren, as well as some being collected from FABSCRAP, which is located in New York City. One of my designs, a coat, is made from different scrap flags that I collected and put together using the Maker Lab at Marist,” Cooper added.

Alongside friends, family members and local sustainability enthusiasts, Marist fashion professors also came out to support student involvement. 

“It’s wonderful to be able to see their collection walk the runway again,” said fashion design professor DooRi Chung. “I’m so familiar with their collection because they worked a year towards their own fashion show, so it’s so wonderful to be able to see it walk on a different runway.”

Chung also explained her involvement in last year’s process of starting this new annual show. 

“For the first runway show last year, I was much more involved. This year however, I really connected Kaitlyn Murray [founder] to the designers. It was so great to see so many Marist students involved in this organization,” Chung said.

Not only were student designers involved in the runway, but many fashion merchandising students from Marist also attended the show as volunteers, helping in many different aspects of the production. 

Kate McLellan ‘25 acted as a designer’s assistant to Faith Delozier, creator of Faithfully Yours Atelier, a locally sustainable and gender-fluid brand based out of Port Ewen, New York. “I helped out by bringing models backstage before the show, helped each model find their own look within the looks that Faith created and helped organize the first walkthrough,” McLellan said.

“It’s always an amazing experience to be able to help out at a fashion show, regardless of what types of garments are being shown, but the outdoor show and sustainability aspect made it all the more special,” said McLellan.

Other Marist students were involved in different aspects of the production like parking, providing refreshments and working stands that held designer clothes ready to be purchased. 

“It has been a really fun experience. I thought that this whole process really showed off what they were trying to showcase and included a fun little map that you could follow to venture around the venue. Everything from location and vibe felt like there was a sustainable feel to it,” said Jayda Hakeem-Ali ‘25.“I worked as a volunteer for parking, but they made strong efforts to make sure the volunteers could also see the show. Most of the time when you’re behind the scenes, you stay behind the scenes.” 

This was the second year Rose Hill Farm was used to showcase these sustainable Hudson Valley designers.

“The view here at Rose Hill Farm is incredible. To have that as the backdrop to their collection, it’s phenomenal,” Chung said. “Murray chose these two designers because their collection was indeed really focused on sustainability, and the venue increased that aspect.”

With sustainable fashion practices being more important than ever, designer Cooper expressed the growing need for locals to be more proactive with these practices. 

“I hope to see if people start to use sustainability as a practice, instead of a concept of interest,” Copper said. “Sustainability, when it first started out, seemed to be mainly an aesthetic almost, and now it’s becoming a backbone to a lot of companies, and I think that is more important.”