Chaffey College Fashion Show will feature designs of 14 students

The Chaffey College Fashion Show, featuring design collections of 14 students, will take place 6-8 p.m. May 3 at the Chino Community Center, 5890 College Park Ave., Chino.

“You’ll see the creativity that our students have,” said Chaffey Fashion Program Coordinator Tara Johnson, coordinator of Chaffey’s fashion program, said in a news release. “We don’t limit them and we want them to be their true selves.”

Chaffey has held fashion shows featuring student work for the past 15 years, but had to put the event on hold for several years because of the pandemic.

This year’s event will not only showcase the work of Chaffey’s fashion design and fashion merchandising programs, but also decorations from the interior design program and hors d’oeuvres by culinary arts and hospitality management students.

In the college’s fashion program, students identify their target customers and conduct demographic and cost analysis. They also learn logo design and resume building, among other skills.

The fashion industry is growing in Southern California, with more than 5,000 jobs available in the Los Angeles, Orange County and Inland Empire areas, according to the news release. Chaffey graduates have gone on to work for companies such as Michael Costello and Shein, and many more have launched their own businesses.

Fashion students plan to feature a wide variety of designs in the show, including a collection of “elevated scrubs” designed by Teodora “Teddy” Burkett, who works in nursing, as well as the streetwear aesthetic of Mustafa Wafa. Wafa’s clothing line Dunya has been featured on runways from New York and Los Angeles to Paris, and his work has been worn by celebrities, according to the news release.

Wafa, a resident of Chino, enrolled at Chaffey during the pandemic because it was the only community college in the region he could find that offered fashion design instruction at the time.

“It was on my bucket list to get a degree, so that one day when my son asks, ‘Where’s daddy’s degree?’ I can show him,” Wafa said in the news release.

The fashion show is free and open to the public, but registration is required, at chaffey.edu/calendar/index.php.