Humber students exhibit diaspora in design

Niharika Nayak: Senior Reporter

Fashion is more than just fabric and trends. It’s a reflection of who we are, where we come from, and how we navigate the world.

This is evident in the vibrant tapestry woven by the young fashion management students at Humber Lakeshore campus on March 25.

Program Coordinator of the Bachelor of Commerce, Francesca D’Angelo’s fashion students’ projects perfectly capture this spirit.

“They’ve been given demographics specific to Humber College,” D’Angelo said. “So it’s pairing up the demographic with the particular trends that we foresee.

“I haven’t given it an overarching theme so each group will have to present their own unique theme,” he said.

D’Angelo said the students used skills gained from a previous project about Lunar guides to create customer profiles and mood boards.

“We’re continuing to build on those skills with this assignment,” D’Angelo said. “I made them work in pairs on their designated demographic that they’ve been given.

“So they can now go into a job interview and say they know how to predict trends that will be coming in the future because they’ve gained these skills through their learning,” D’Angelo said.

Technology also played a role as the student designers said they used social media apps like Instagram, Pinterest and X to gauge trends and incorporate sustainable fabrics.

D’Angelo said this project aimed to equip students with the essential skills they needed to succeed in fashion management, including presentation skills, portfolio building, and styling abilities.

Jensi Patel and Tearislee Thomas, two fashion management students, said their collection reflects the trends their research has predicted.

Patel and Thomas said their research predicts trends such as burgundy, elemental blue, and versatile dressing for various activities.

“Based on our mood board, you can see this woman. She’s a black, catholic woman who is 23 years old,” Thomas said. “So we wanted to make sure that when we were doing trend predictions, we had stuff that wasn’t too provocative and things that you can spin into everyday wear.”

Thomas and her partner said they aim to blend art, culture, and technology by incorporating traditional prints, modesty, and versatile, sustainable fabrics.

“I guess the biggest inspiration for our mood board is probably a new spin on Sunday best dressing,” Thomas said.

Transitioning from this ethos, Jensi Patel said she wanted to fur- ther elaborate on their vision of blending modesty with current trends, emphasizing a springsummer vibe.

“We tried to incorporate a futuristic summer vibe for our girl,” Thomas’ partner Jensi Patel said.

Challenges such as finding the right trends that align with the target customer’s budget and cultural background were also highlighted by many of the students, showcasing the complexity of creating fashion collections that resonate with specific demographics.

Julian Samadhin and Rhys Wylie said they faced a few challenges while coming up with the right character persona.

“It was really difficult trying to find aspects of a completely different person’s life online without knowing the person at all,” Wylie said.

“I would say timing in terms of what I wanted to incorporate was a challenge, I wish I would have added more details. We described our ideal customers as if they were shopping at stores, but I feel like there is more personality to them,” Samadhin said.

Valentina Saki and Erica Backman said that affordability, diversity and hyper-femininity were two things they kept in mind while creating their mood board.

Erica Backman said their customer profile was a 21-year-old student with a passion for thrift shopping.”She likes watching movies, rom-coms especially,” Backman said. “She listens to Latin-American and pop music, she likes to read romantic novels and she likes jewelry.”

Capturing the essence of their target demographic, Valentina Saki, said that slingback heels, a typically feminine look, are a popular style that’s hitting the runways.

“Hyper-femininity is something that you can put in anything, that can embody art, as well as sustainability. Being able to reuse and recycle things like upcycling as well, that’s part of art I think,” Saki said.