South’s Fashion Club recently had its first meeting of the school year on December 13th, 2022. Fashion club was first established in 2018 by Sonya Maier with the intention of getting students to feel comfortable with expressing themselves through fashion. With the great attendance rates that the club has been getting, they have many exciting events that they plan on implementing. 

This year, the fashion club is led by four Juniors, Deena Maier, Isabel Ocholi, Mamie Slusher, and Rosie Puotinen. They’re excited to be in charge and have many ideas of what direction they want to take the club in. “I wanted to start back up fashion club because I wanted to create a space where people with shared interests could meet and connect with each other. My sister founded fashion club so I wanted to continue to keep it alive.” Maier explains. 

“I’ve been interested in fashion since middle school. Fashion is a very unique style of art and it’s a great form of expression.” Slusher adds. The fashion club’s goal is to inspire people to be interested in fashion and feel comfortable expressing themselves. “The South community’s style is very vibrant and diverse and our club wants to focus on showcasing this”, Slusher states. 

So far, the club has done painting, upcycling, patchwork, sewing, clothing swaps, collages, and crocheting. “We want to plan activities that people are interested in and all of the things we’ve done so far have been really fun and engaging,” Ocholi says.

The club wants to teach students how to shop sustainably, create/fix their own clothes, and how to sew/crochet. “Creation is a big part of our club and educating others on how to sew and customize their clothing could help people in a variety of ways,” Puotinen explains. 

The fashion club has huge plans going forward. They plan to do more fundraising, upcycling, and even potentially a garage sale. This year, the fashion club is more community-oriented, primarily focusing on doing things to help out those in need. They want to do this by partnering with other community organizations, starting clothing drives, donating to shelters, and more. “This is important to us because we want to make clothing accessible to everyone, as many of us don’t realize the privileges we have in regard to our clothing consumption. Fashion should be for everyone, but people’s circumstances can get in the way of that so we want to do what we can to help,” Maier explains. Inspired by other schools, the club also has plans to open a thrift store inside of South. It would be a room where students could donate unwanted clothing which would then be available to those who want it. “I feel like experimenting with fashion is a good thing for teens to do, so opening something like this in the school would encourage that while also providing a more sustainable/inexpensive way of shopping,” Maier says.

More high school students now than ever before are interested in fashion and are experimenting with their personal style. The fashion club has many exciting visions that they’re planning to put into action this year. If you’re looking for a creative outlet, or a place to relax after the school day, fashion club is the place to be. The fashion club meets every other Tuesday in Room 205.