FORWARD-LOOKING FASHION

The catwalk lit up last night as student models strutted their stuff down the runway. But forget Gucci, Marc Jacobs and Chanel - the latest couture on display at this fashion show was completely hand-me-down.

Feminism Without Borders enlisted the Echelon Fashion Society and the recently formed Fashion Business Society to promote sweatshop-free fashion at the Colony Ballroom in the Stamp Student Union last night. The fashion show was part of FWB's three-year-long campaign to get the university to sign on to the Designated Suppliers Program, an agreement that would require fair working conditions and pay in factories that make university apparel.

"Last year, what the campaign was lacking was a broad base of student support, so we're trying to get other people involved and make people more aware of it in a fun way," FWB member Liz Ciavolino, a sophomore music major, said. "And clothing is really our thing, since the campaign deals with the issue of sweatshop apparel."

The show was divided into three parts, whose hippie, romance and rock themes grew out of a vision of '60s and '70s protesters, FBS Vice President Linley Cohen said. The runway stretched through a semi-circle of chairs packed with more than 100 students as songs from Bob Marley and Fall Out Boy blared on the speakers.

Organizers scoured area thrift stores for weeks to find the perfect outfits, opting against the limited choices from guaranteed sweatshop-free websites. Female models sauntered down the runway in gauzy dresses and tight pencil skirts, including several designs from Echelon President Amanda Uduka. Male models wore plaid and went bare-chested beneath leather jackets. On the final lap, models carried picket signs that read "Students Against Sweatshops" and "Fair Labor."

"Although it's possible that the thrift store clothes were once made in a sweatshop, buying secondhand is taking a stand against big corporations and companies," Cohen said. "Basically, the only way to know if what you're wearing isn't made in a sweatshop is if it's from a guaranteed website, if you buy it from the designer or if it's handmade."

Licensing director Joe Ebaugh, a former North Face executive, stands behind the university's membership with the Fair Labor Association, a nonprofit that monitors factory conditions. FWB members say the organization is monopolized by corporations and has failed to promote workers' rights as evidenced by the recent firing of 145 workers for unionizing at the Jerzees de Honduras factory, where university apparel is made. The DSP would harness the university's licensing power to force companies such as Nike and Under Armour to two-year contracts with a fair labor factory.

"[The fashion show] is a good way to get the word out," said senior psychology and criminology major Lezley Grace. "A lot of people don't know that their Maryland clothes could come from sweatshops."

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