The Gothic Times

Issue date: 2/22/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Cristina Villaflor Students strike a pose and do the "catwalk" during rehearsals for the fashion show at the BDI

Models walk to and fro, addressing a makeshift runway with a predatory stare. Lincoln Farquharson issues commentary while in another room, Renata Moreira works with students to iron out details of an upcoming runway show. This may be mistaken as a preview for the next season of "Project Runway" but it's actually the rehearsal for the upcoming "Runway Peace Project" that is being held in New Jersey City University by the Women Speak Out Project in collaboration with the NJCU Women's History Month Committee. World peace and gender equality are just some of the topics that a night of poetry, music and a runway show hope to shed light on.

On Thursday, March 8th in the Gothic Lounge at Hepburn Hall, NJCU students and various businesses in the Jersey City community will come together to open a dialogue on issues such as cultural fashions and world piece. The project chair of "Women Speak Out" Renata Moreira explained, "This is the first time we're incorporating fashion into a speakout…I do think it [Runway Project] can be an educational experience and students can come out transformed."

The Women Speak Out project has been
working together with artists, students,
activists and women's rights advocates
over the past 7 years to open up dialogue
and the promotional material for the Runway
Project goes on to state, "create a venue where women would be able to share and reflect upon their individual and collective experiences as citizens of the world; and to relate that dialogue to a number of topics linked to International
Women's Day."

From a design standpoint, a call had gone out to designers and models to lend their politically savvy talents for the Runway Peace Project and the designs for the show include a variety of themes. One such theme in the show is Happiness Ever After, that is taking formal wear and projecting a fairly tale world where world piece has been achieved. Body paint is also being used heavily to express views on achieving peace and informing others about the toll war can take on women. Caution is still being taken to make sure that the focus remains on the issue at hand, and that the Runway Project doesn't fall into the pitfalls that plague mainstream runway shows. Moreira explains, "This fashion show is from a feminist perspective so we don't want to objectify anyone."

Continued...

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