Chicago Fashion Coalition hosts a multi-sensory runway show with ‘Create vs. Consume: A Culinary Fashion Experience’

The Chicago Fashion Coalition transformed Stan Mansion into a multi-sensory fashion experience on Friday, Oct. 11. Seven emerging Chicago designer’s looks were put on display, where audience members were given the opportunity to purchase looks fresh off the runway. 

With 200 seats filled, audience members lined the walls as Marquan Jones, president of the Chicago Fashion Coalition, opened the show with a speech where he flipped the script and thanked everyone involved at the beginning of the show.

“If I’m being honest, this took a lot of work. Budgets were slim, there were time constraints — especially with a non-profit comprised of all volunteers,” Jones said. “We’re here because we believe in what we’re doing.”

Daniella Ashibuogwu and Meher Dhillon Sheth both run operations for CFC. Ashibougwu has worked New York Fashion week for the past three seasons and said she has wanted to bring similar events to Chicago. 

“I know we have the capacity to do it, the ability to do it. It’s just been something that really is a big undertaking,” Ashibougwu said. “This year we have the right people on the board, the right ecosystem, the city is coming back to life after we all took a hit from the pandemic, so I am really looking forward to seeing Chicago show up and show out.”

Some foundational elements for the event found their way from backstage to front and center, like hair and makeup tables. In addition, this event saw the union of three industries: technology, food and fashion. 

Staff members of the coalition offered trays of six different hors d’oeuvres to guests before and after the runways, followed by dessert items after the show which were curated in accompaniment with the designs being showcased on the runway. Dishes included black bean sliders, shrimp ceviche tacos and thai red curry chicken wontons, and for dessert, panna cotta spoons and strawberry shortcake skewers. 

After a short introduction by Cassi Credidio, who goes by the stage name of Casscellina, founder of Antix Art Fest, models emerged from visible changing rooms and walked the runway. Pre-recorded projections of the looks presented that night were displayed on folding screens behind the models as house music ushered them down the aisles. The whole experience was completed by scents curated by In the Realm of Senses which showered down from above. After four of the designers had gone, a short intermission followed where guests took photos on the runway. 

Casscelina gave a brief synopsis on the previous designers who had shown their collections and then introduced the last three. Jones took the stage and celebrated the future of Chicago fashion, then Casscelina welcomed guests to the networking hour.  

Jones told the Chronicle that the event is reimagined as a “see-now-buy-now model” in order to give designers even more exposure. The menu passed out to guests featured a QR code where attendees could purchase the items shown on the runway, but the site stated that it would be up shortly.

“Previously in the industry, see-now-buy-now means, you see the clothes on a runway, then you can go to a showroom and go purchase them,” said Jones. 

The show is unique in the way that the coalition developed a “live shopping experience” where attendees can purchase the designs off of the runway live.

“I think it’s important for designers to make money from their art,” Jones said. “Sometimes designers pay to be in, they pay obscene amounts of money and then they don’t get customers from it so they’re just bleeding cash.”

The new model was enabled by the coalition’s e-commerce platform, which was facilitated in part by Haven Hathaway, a senior fashion studies major who worked with CFC in publishing their blog, the Journal, where stories about CFC initiatives and events are shared.

“My job as the editorial curator is to be at these events and sort of recap what CFC is hosting on this journal page, so that there’s always a permanent spot for what they did for Chicago Fashion Week,” Hathaway said. “Also, a roundup of the outfits that are going to be on the e-commerce site because that’s what makes the Create vs. Consume event cool, is all those looks that will be shown are going to be immediately shoppable,” Hathaway said. 

Hathaway got involved with CFC through Columbia’s Fashion Association, whose president Emma Hitch, a senior marketing major, and vice-president, Sophia Klun, a senior in fashion studies, reached out to Jones to host an event. 

Klun and Hitch introduced Jones to the campus, where he took on a mentor role to the students working with the coalition.

In addition, CFC had its first Fashion Futures in May of 2023, an annual runway for the city’s schools that takes place every spring, and Columbia got to be a part of it. 

When planning the event, the CFC wanted to make sure that it was “an equitable experience for everyone across Chicago, from people who are willing to pay the big bucks to students who want to attend events for free,” Klune said. 

One of the students who attended the event as a volunteer was Charlie Lambert, a junior fashion design major and officer for the Columbia Fashion Association. 

“It’s just exciting to see the people who are stylists bring their clothes,” Lambert said. “It’ll be a really cool night of all kinds of collaboration.”

Tickets for the Consume vs. Create runway were $60 with a 40% off discount code for college students, in efforts of connecting students to the fashion scene. CFC’s next event, Fashion Futures, is student focused and is typically RSVP based.   

“They are keeping in mind that students are interested in this. They want to be a part of this. They want to have a seat at the table, have these conversations,” Hathaway said.

Copy edited by Trinity Balboa

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