The Peak | Issue 02

EDITOR’S NOTE

Hi there, welcome to The Peak by Mustang Media Group! We are a hub for Cal Poly creatives, highlighting the bustling arts and culture scene here in San Luis Obispo.

In our final issue of the school year, you can find the latest editions of our cannabis column, college cooking series, crosswords and quizzes – plus fresh perspectives on all things fashion, raves and which coffee shop you should get your caffeine fix.

This issue was created completely in house by students who took on these projects in addition to their normal busy lives. Our team spent the last four months interviewing, writing, editing, scrapping and re-writing the pages you’re flipping through now. We hope you’ll have as much of an adventure reading this as we had making it!

For us five editors, this is the last time we’ll be working on The Peak (don’t worry, we’re just graduating. The magazine isn’t going anywhere). Thank you so much for enjoying our little experiment, which in the span of a year went from an idea, to a product and now a wonderful college memory. We’re so excited to see where the future takes our magazine.

In these pages you might read familiar bylines from KCPR.org and Mustangnews.net, however, we welcome submitted work and will have many opportunities to contribute in the coming issues.

If you have a story idea or hope to be featured in a later edition, send your inquiries to editorial@mustangmediagroup.com

EDITORS

Catherine Allen

Claire Lorimor

Chloe Lovejoy

Cindy Nguyen

Emily Tobiason

CONTRIBUTORS

Addy Gomez

Aidan Dillon

Alejandro Rearte

Amelia Nored

Angie Stevens

Archana Pisupati

Ariel Sherman

Aviv Kesar

Brandon Schwartz

Cole Pressler

Emma Montalbano

Fiona Hastings

Jeremy Garza

Kennedy Ray

Lauren Emo

Liz Ridley

Noel Lopez

Rain Mazumder

Riley Petrocco

Sarina Grossi

Sydnie Bierma

Tayler Kang

Zoie Denton

POEMS

Various authors

GEMS: THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN GENDER EXPERIENCES, ART AND PERFORMANCE AT CAL POLY

Amelia Nored

SHOPPING SUSTAINABLY IN SLO

Sydnie Bierma

WHAT’S YOUR PERFECT COFFEE SHOP?

Fiona Hastings & Archana Pisupati

COLLEGE COOKING: THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SANDWICH

Sarina Grossi

BEHIND THE SEAMS OF THIS YEAR’S FITS X SFC FASHION SHOW

Angie Stevens and Riley Petrocco

SLO’S LOCAL RAVE CULTURE

Cole Pressler

WEED ALL ABOUT IT

Jeremy Garza CROSSWORD

Zoie Denton & Lauren Emo

The Garden You Made

I love you, I say Which love? You ask. which love do you love me with?

The one that enters your body with a white flag makes your stomach a garden, fills it with heavy soil plants milkweed, gives the butterflies something to eat while they sleep.

BY ZOIE DENTON

A Gift

If the news read, Stars are Raining from the Sky

They became too heavy for the night to carry so it began to cry

You betcha I’ll be there

I’ll lace up my hair put on my boots cap on my head and wait outside with a butterfly net

Watch me dissolve in the rain

A girl and a desperate frame waiting for one to fall begging the world to slow so I can catch at least one one star to show

Once I got one caught

I’ll put it in my pocket

How could I catch a star without knowing that you saw it? Without a waiver, you would find the perfect place to hold my star the glass mason jar kind

You’d sit for a while to watch it skip ‘round the container study it’s wings flutter hear the subtle shimmer as it bounced and zipped tap the glass, make it flip shake side to side bring it to the light sleeping, peaceful in its case

At night, you can almost see the tiny, fragile face

BY LAUREN EMO

Eve’s Mother,

born with dirt in her eyes, and stumbling fell into His trap.

Wailing, she turned the ground beneath her into mud, into muddy water, into salty clear abyssher erosion birthed ocean.

Her belly rose with the tide, and she tried to escape herself, Watched the forest start its fires

Saw the shore purge itself wave after wave, Learned how to run.

She found a place to sleep, thought it was a nice garden, really.

Confused mother’s intuition with guilt and left her child crying-Adam took credit.

She took some apples for the road, snuck away, lives now somewhere in Idaho, is sick of knowledge and full of Dirt.

Eve’s mother taught us how to pray: O kneel to the Dirt Pray with the Dirt

Lay her there when she stops dying.

BY ZOIE DENTON

Laguna

I go to the water when I feel a tugging, an over-the-ocean call to a place where the wind plays spiderwebs that hang from trees, a string ensemble singing me the song of slow down

On the dock, the reeds raise me up so I can get a closer view of today.

Three dragonflies chase each other in zig zags, circles, straight, side, up, down.

The sun tugs at my peripheral to say –“I didn’t quit casting amidst your mind’s hiatus.”

Here, the shape of me is stripped back and all versions who have been here before know exactly which ducks swim in pairs, which ones bobble for bread and how the mist blankets my arms velvet, when it touches down

On these afternoons I apologize to all the birds, for their watchers’ binoculars must be much more focused

On the girl who sits, she spills her yesterdays, filling the lake

BY LAUREN EMO

The intersection between gender experiences, art and performance at Cal Poly

BY AMELIA NORED | DESIGNED BY TAYLER KANG

As liberal studies junior Tori McClelland takes center stage in Spanos Theatre, the audience in front of her falls silent. Illuminated by a warm spotlight, she stands in emerald low-top converse, dark gray khaki shorts and an oversized army green sweater. Her voice floats the words of “Female Gaze,” a poem by environmental earth and soil sciences junior Nabila Wildman, off the page:

“The way you look at me

With your pretty brown eyes

Is maybe the only evidence

To determine how you see me

As another queer person

On this cold campus.”

Directed by Wildman, the 2024 Original Womxn’s Narratives (OWN) production took place from April 6 to 7. Through student performance and a published zine, the production offered a multi-faceted look into experiences of gender marginalization and queerness on Cal Poly’s campus and

beyond through 24 different performances and 33 zine contributions.

“[The production] is a space to express yourself, build community, share stories that you might not have other spaces to share and to represent queer experiences on campus and in the world,” Wildman said. “I think knowing that everyone has different life experiences and lead lives as complex as yours means that everyone has something to bring to the table. Everyone has something worthwhile to share, and I just want to provide a space for that.”

Centering the stories of historically marginalized identities with a focus on misogyny-affected individuals, each piece is interconnected with the theme of this year’s production selected by Wildman: “queer relationality.”

City and regional planning freshman and OWN zine director Sam Thome spoke about how “Female Gaze” gets at the heart of queer relationality and his own connection to this year’s theme.

“Cal Poly, especially being a PWI [predominately white institution] and just lacking a lot of the diversity that a lot of other California colleges have, can be super isolating, especially as a trans person on campus,” Thome said. “And even if you don’t talk or don’t become friends, you have this sort of unspoken community — unspoken relationality I guess.”

English junior Soph Robson, who joined the OWN cast for the first time this year, recalled the immediate sense of community they felt upon meeting everyone.

“It was a really crazy experience to just meet these strangers and on the first day we met them, we just read each other this really deep, gut-wrenching poetry, and we learned so much about each other in such a short time,” Robson said. “We saw each other crying, we saw each other happy.”

Despite cast bonding and becoming comfortable speaking their pieces aloud, Robson said that sharing their experiences was also the most nerve-wracking part of the production.

“I was probably most nervous about sharing the content of my work because it was pretty deeply personal to me … even just because I knew that a lot of people in the audience would be people I knew, whether personally or from classes or teachers or professors or something,” Robson said. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, they’re going to know so much personal stuff about me.’”

Biological sciences junior Sema Lew, who choreographed and performed three dances in the production, echoed this feeling of fear — and equally, courage — that came with her performance.

“It’s like a piece of yourself that’s out there,” Lew said. “But I also think that that was one of the most exciting parts, too — it was just, like, doing it and feeling super proud of it and feeling like, ‘Yeah, I fucking did that.’”

Though Lew was not as ingrained in the community bonding due to dancers not participating in weekly rehearsals with the cast, this feeling of letting others see her at

Lulu David | KCPR

Sema Lew

Nabila Wildman

AJ Bocanegra

Tori McClelland

Ashley Kang

her most authentic self is what brought her closer to her castmates.

“I think [the production] is really cool because it just gives us all a space to share a little bit of ourselves, or a lot of ourselves, or all of ourselves; to share some aspects of ourselves in a way that’s meant to uplift and honor us, which just feels super powerful and awesome,” Lew said.

The action of performance itself also opens up space for performers to recognize parts of themselves that can only be found at the intersection between performance and personal experiences.

“Finding coexistence between two parts of myself that are both so important to me, and that in the past, obviously they both coexisted within me, but having that be explicit … that was really cool,” Lew said.

Alongside recognition of self, the production and its community encourages each student to take pride in their identities and experiences.

“Being a part of OWN has really helped me develop a really good sense of self and become more confident in me and what I like and how I identify,” McClelland said.

Writers and performers were also able to connect more deeply with their own artistic abilities through the

power of bringing their pieces to life with performance and publication.

“I had one of the performers come up to me, and they’re a writer and have been writing, and they came up to me and said that they didn’t know that they could do that with their writing. They didn’t know that it could look like this,” Wildman said.

This is also what builds the bridge between art and queerness, which can sometimes feel mutually exclusive.

“Sometimes, for me, being creative … I don’t want to put too much meaning on something, or I don’t feel comfortable putting too much meaning on something,’” Lew said. “But I think that OWN allowed me to be like, ‘This is super meaningful to me, and I want to share that.’ Having such a centered and uplifting and honoring space to be able to put all that meaning and feeling and emotion and identity into that space, where I feel comfortable and I know that I will be supported in that way, was super awesome.”

Wildman, Thome, Lew, McClelland and Robson all plan to return for next year’s production. While the production will remain similar with familiar faces on stage, it will also make noticeable shifts for 2025.

One of the most significant, and long fought-for, changes is that the production’s name will be shifting

excitement for the name change and hope it will help welcome people of all different gender identities to the production.

to “GEMS,” an acronym for Gender Experiences, Monologues and Stories. The change is representative of the Gender Equity Center’s (GEC) decision to make the production more inclusive of all gender identities, representations and experiences, as opposed to predominantly presenting the voices of misogyny-affected individuals.

The previous name, “OWN,” has gone through several iterations since 2016 when it was first presented by the GEC. It began as “Original Women’s Narratives” and was revised to “Original Womxn’s Narratives” in 2019, with the shift to “womxn” made in light of further inclusivity. However, given the history of the name and its unavoidable connection to the word “women,” many people involved in the 2024 production who don’t identify as women first felt apprehensive to join.

“From my personal experience, as somebody who is not a woman, that name was kind of a deterrent,” Thome said. “I knew that I was still included within the production, but I felt like I was just sort of just a contributor and not necessarily underneath that umbrella.”

Robson, who identifies as non-binary, resonated with this sentiment.

“I saw ‘Original Women’s Narratives,’ and it might’ve even been without the ‘x’ in ‘womxn’ at that point,” Robson said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I want to participate in that.’”

Both Robson and Thome expressed

The 2025 production will also continue expanding the supplementary zine. Under the direction of Thome, the 2024 zine took on its most polished form yet with a 40-page spread showcasing creative and cohesive design based on a stylebook Thome developed. Thome hand-wrote bylines and titles to add personal touches to the design, incorporated photos submitted by contributors and shaped the color scheme around purple, green and brown.

Though Thome said he wasn’t able to make the zine a “super punk” one because of its publication through a big institution like Cal Poly, he still wanted it to honor the history of zines — as rooted in the riot grrrl and various queer punk movements — and the “ethos of very DIY and radical publications.”

“We all kind of did it ourselves in conjunction with the Gender Equity Center, but I think just being able to just go out and print something and distribute it for no cost, like this zine, or like very low cost, I think is so radical,” Thome said. “The importance is not about a publication that makes money but a publication that’s about spreading ideas and giving a platform to historically marginalized people who have not been given a platform.”

Reflecting on OWN in 2024 and looking forward to the 2025 GEMS production, the GEC’s annual spring production emphasizes that no matter who you are and what you identify as, you are not alone — even if it can feel like a “cold campus.”

Elyssa Abbott | Courtesy

Doe Carbajal

Tien Nguyen

Shopping in

By Sydnie Bierma

Designed by Maya Rotstein

While fashion influencers grow in numbers and fast fashion becomes increasingly accessible online, more and more Cal Poly students are rejecting it all for a different trend: sustainable style.

Fromm Dexter Lawn thrift pop-ups to Swap n’ Shops, thrifting can be simultaneously a creative outlet and an ethical practice. Cal Poly’s Sustainable Fashion Club (SFC) has garnered close to 100 members since its founding in 2020.

President of the SFC and environmental

management and protection senior Lenaya Gonzales thinks it’s important to “get rid of that stigma to keep up with the trend cycle and understand you will never realistically be trendy all the time.”

Gonzales began thrifting at a young age out of necessity because it was what her family could afford. It wasn’t until she came to college that her mindset surrounding sustainability shifted.

Gonzales came to learn that fast fashion production means extremely low wages and poor working

conditions for sweatshop workers, while also worsening the climate crisis.

The impact “falls disproportionately on certain communities including women and children,” Gonzales said.

Conscientious thrifting

In the transition of switching from shopping retail to thrifting, it’s important to be considerate of additional factors that affect the community, Gonzales described this as “thrifting etiquette.”

You can have thrifting etiquette by being respectful of buying clothes that aren’t your size. For example, even though oversized clothes are trendy, Gonzales said it’s important to be mindful when shopping for that look.

“If there’s three shirts in a size and you take all of them, that’s taking from a group that’s not traditionally represented in clothing size ranges,” Gonzales said.

It’s also important to consider in- versus off-season items season items when thrifting. This means to not buy a bunch of coats during the summer months, because there are people in need of warmer clothes during the colder season.

Finally, Gonzales mentioned that while thrifting in different towns is a good way to find unique pieces and diversify your thrifting experience, it’s important to be mindful of the people in that community and not take their entire supply of thrifted clothes.

The sustainability mindset: Expanding the lifespan of your clothes

While thrifting is a great way to begin shopping sustainably, overall the shift to actually being sustainable is more of a change and begins with clothes that you already have in your closet.

Being sustainable is moving away from seeing clothes as a one-time-use item.

“The cycle of producing clothes can be so small.

You buy something, wear it once and then you’re done,” child development junior Elise Reeber said.

Sustainability is about “expanding the lifespan of clothes,” Reeber said. “Making one specific article of clothing last and making it live through generations and different owners.”

To do this, Gonzales finds ways to rewear her existing clothes, or thrifts pieces that can be worn many different ways.

Gonzales recently thrifted an orange scarf for under a dollar at Hope Chest, a thrift store in

San Luis Obispo. She can style it differently each time she wears it — whether it’s worn around her head, neck or as a shirt.

Another way to think and shop sustainably is to make clothing items out of existing fabrics. A local thrift store, Fred and Betty’s has a fabric bin where they sell fabric scraps.

Clothing swaps and thrifting on campus

Aside from going to “traditional” thrift stores such as the Goodwill Bins, Fred and Betty’s Thrift Store,

“I’m really happy we’re able to meet people that are outside the scope [of the “traditional” thrifting community],” Gonzales said.

A sense of identity

Shopping sustainably also allows for growth in personal identity.

“Thrifting is about solidifying your identity not only as a person and how you present but as a consumer,” Gonzales said. “At the beginning of college I became more mindful of my clothes in general.”

Thrifting is unique because the pieces you find “are not from a store that sells 150 of them, it’s from a giant bin at Goodwill,” Kaufman said.

and Hope Chest, different on-campus clubs such as the SFC and Thrift Cal Poly provide on campus thrifting opportunities.

Thrift Cal Poly put on a Valentine’s Sustainable Marketplace with 30 different vendors. The organization hosts marketplaces once per quarter.

“Our vendors range from clothes to jewelry,” event planner for CP Thrift and recreation, parks and tourism administration sophomore Kathryn Kaufman said.

Another on-campus sustainable shopping opportunity is the Swap N’ Shop put on by the SFC and Cal Poly Green

Campus. This is where students are able to come with existing clothes that they don’t wear anymore and swap them with other students’ clothes.

This provides a fun and personal aspect to thrifting and shopping sustainably. It allows students to refresh their closet without having to spend money, according to Gonzales.

To further increase thrifting acces sibility on campus, the SFC has also been working has also been working to bring thrifting into Cal Poly’s greek life. Events such as Beta Theta Thrift happen quarterly and raise funds for not only the vendors, but the fraternity as well.

Alongside clothing, there’s also an art community involved with shopping sustainably. Gonzales was reintroduced to shopping sustainably at one of San Luis Obispo’s many craft sales.

These craft sales are put on at community spaces, vendors houses or areas in downtown, according to Gonzales.

Inspired by the vendors at the first craft sale she went to, Gonzales began making her own jewelry. She now makes earrings and necklaces, and recently began doing tooth gems.

It “became a hobby as well as a side hustle I could use to support myself,” she said.

Photos by Addy Gomez

WHAT’S

YOUR

PERFECT COFFEE SHOP?

San Luis Obispo is home to many local coffee shops around town, including Deltina Coffee Roasters, BlackHorse Espresso and Bakery, Linnaea’s Cafe, and Kreuzberg California. Were you born to live by the beach? Maybe your spirit lies more within the rolling mountains of California… Connect with a SLO cafe to find your PERFECT match!

Written by ARCHANA Pisupati AND FIONA Hastings

Designed by BRANDON SCHWARTZ

BREWING RESULTS

DELTINA

You’re Deltina Coffee Roasters! You love earthy flavors and shopping organically and sustainably. Sharing coffee with others is more than just a casual conversation for you, but a relaxing and connecting experience. You have a deep sense of curiosity for the world, but also for the small simple things such as coffee.

“Our shops are focused on good, clean coffees and community. We are coffee roasters who enjoy a good cup of coffee and a good conversation, and we welcome any and all who want to learn more about coffee.”

—

Jill Quint, co-founder of Deltina

LINNAEA’S

You’re Linnaea’s Cafe! Friday night? You’re probably at a house show, enjoying some live music and creative sips. You are incredibly social and love sharing memories over a good meal. Need some down time? You’ll be in your serene oasis, a secret garden, probably staying updated on your ex’s daily horoscope while burning incense.

“It all began in 1984 when Linnaea Phillips created a gathering place for conversation, music, social events, and, of course, sharing good food and drink. With the help of many friends, her vision of a classic coffee house became a reality, and one of the first 2nd wave coffee establishments on the West Coast was born.”

— courtesy of Linnaea’s Café

BLACKHORSE

You’re BlackHorse Espresso & Bakery! You love cozy nights cuddling up with a novel, accompanied with a classic dark roast. You love warm earthy tones and bring your crochet tote bag to your corner table at the local library. Always in your cozy nook, a string of fairy lights decorates your bedroom along with chalkboard walls.

“BlackHorse was born out of an idea that coffee and community go together and after 10 years this idea is still just as true. The company was created with the intention of providing a fun and comfortable atmosphere for members of the community to hang out and enjoy a great cup of coffee.”

— courtesy of Blackhorse’s website

KREUZBERG

You’re Kreuzberg California! You are a strong believer of the “work hard play hard” motto and find pleasure from the thrill and productivity of a busy day. You thrive in the nightlife scene but are always down to get a dark roast coffee while listening to your ‘90s grunge playlist and visiting the art scenes in downtown SLO.

“The idea was to create a place where you could grab a cappuccino in the morning, a sandwich at lunch, and then close up your laptop for cocktails with friends at night.”

— courtesy of Kreuzberg’s website

By Sarina Grossi Designed by Alejandro Rearte

CollegeCooking: Breakfast The Philosophy of the Sandwich

The sandwich. It’s a staple for all ages, especially college students who need a quick bite. The sandwich’s origins are unknown, but its name dates back to the 18th century with John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who popularized the meal with his late-night snacks. Though it’s renowned worldwide, the sandwich is a topic of debate: What constitutes a true sandwich? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it’s a split roll of two or more slices of bread with some sort of filling in between, but is that necessarily correct? For this edition of College Cooking, we have three sandwich recipes that defy what exactly a sandwich is. Each sandwich can be eaten for a different meal.

Bagel BELT

To some, the foundation of a sandwich must be two pieces of bread, but this recipe questions if that is the case. Could a bagel split in half work as a sandwich? We believe so. This bagel sandwich is a play on the classic BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato), but adds a morning flair with the addition of an egg.

Ingredients:

1 bagel of your choice

Photography by Addy Gomez

1 tomato

1 to 2 leaves of lettuce

2 to 3 slices of bacon

1 egg

Condiment of choice (optional)

Directions:

Using a cutting board and a knife, slice the tomato until you have your desired amount of tomato slices.

Using a well-oiled or buttered pan, fry up an egg over medium heat for about two to three minutes until the bottom is firm on each side. Season the egg with salt and pepper, if you like. Place the cooked fried egg to the side.

Using the same pan, begin to fry up the bacon slices in a single layer with gaps in between. Cook the bacon over medium heat and flip them over often to have even browning across, until they are ready, about eight to 15 minutes. Once cooked, absorb oil with a paper towel.

Grab a bagel and slice it in half. Toast to preferred crispiness.

Assemble your Bagel BELT. Place the egg on top of the bottom slice of the bagel, then the lettuce leaves, tomato slices and bacon broken up into bits on top. Add optional condiments, and then place the top slice of the bagel on top. Enjoy!

Lunch Dinner

Caprese Sandwich

This sandwich is light, delicious, easy to make and a great vegetarian option. However, it may conflict with some people’s definition of a sandwich since it does not contain meat. Nonetheless, you get a taste of Italy in a nicely compact sandwich, how much better can it get?

Ingredients:

1 ciabatta roll or other bread/roll of your choice

2 to 3 slices of mozzarella cheese

1 tomato

2 to 4 leaves of basil

Balsamic glaze

Pesto sauce

Directions:

Using a cutting board and a knife, slice the tomato until you have the desired amount of tomato slices.

Split the ciabatta roll apart and have it open-facing. Spread a spoonful of pesto sauce evenly across the roll.

Place the mozzarella cheese on one side of the roll, then toast the roll in the oven at about 350 degrees until the cheese has melted.

Take the sandwich out of the oven, and top it with the tomato and basil.

Drizzle the balsamic glaze over the top, then close the sandwich and enjoy.

Chicken Parmwich

Now here’s a hearty and cozy sandwich that makes for a great dinner. Contrary to some people’s beliefs, a sandwich isn’t always something that’s quick or works as a snack, but can be a good fulfilling dinner. The Chicken Parmwich combines the easy nature of a sandwich with the tasty goodness of a chicken parmesan dinner at a fancy restaurant.

Ingredients:

½ of a chicken breast

½ cup of flour

2 eggs whisked

½ cup of Italian breadcrumbs

1 tsp of garlic powder

1 tsp of onion powder

1 tsp of salt

½ tsp of pepper

½ cup of grated parmesan cheese

1 cup of cooking oil

1 Italian bread roll

½ cup of marinara sauce

2 slices of mozzarella cheese

Directions:

In a small bowl, mix together breadcrumbs, garlic powder, onion powder, dried basil, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese. Transfer into a shallow bowl. Place whisked eggs into another shallow bowl and flour into a different shallow bowl.

Dredge the chicken by first placing it into the flour, then into the egg, then into the breadcrumb mixture, and then repeat the egg and breadcrumb mixture one more time.

Heat oil in a pan on medium heat, and then once the oil is heated, place the chicken into the pan and cook for three to four minutes on each side until fully cooked

Place the chicken on a lined cookie sheet and top with mozzarella. Bake at 350 degrees until the mozzarella is melted.

Cut the roll in half. Toast for three to five minutes.

Heat marinara sauce in the microwave for 30-second intervals until heated, mixing in between. Spoon sauce onto the chicken and top with basil, then place on top of the roll and serve.

And there you have it, a definition-bending sandwich for each meal of the day! If you try out these recipes, post them to Instagram and tag @cpmustangnews or @ kcpr913 to be entered to win free stickers!

Happy Cooking!

Scan QR code for a video walkthrough of the recipes!

SEAMS

BY ANGIE STEVENS AND RILEY PETROCCO

DESIGNED BY KENNEDY RAY

Chairs line a 466-foot-long spiral runway as audience members situate themselves before showtime. Lights dim as chatter is replaced by music. Models sweep onto the runway in dazzling designs produced and constructed by the hands of Cal Poly students, fervent with passion and equipped with a keen eye for fashion.

Bursts of color and fascinating compositions from varying collections blend and blur time as each look is displayed for just under two minutes. This fast-paced nature and amalgamation of designs, uniquely encompassing hints of the theme “Symbiosis,” is truly what anchors the Sustainable Fashion Club (SFC) and Fashion Innovation, Trend Setting and Styling (FITS) clubs’ Spring Fashion Show.

Underlying the brief minutes of stage time are months of elaborate preparation that unfold as models make their way across stage — maybe pausing to strike a pose or pivoting into a rehearsed spin. A designer’s collection and the way in which one piece elegantly drapes or catches wind is not solely attributed to those minutes on stage but rather to the countless focused hours at the sewing machine

spent in between classes. Pages of a designer’s journal, with ideas slashed out and circled notes dotted around them, are the birthplace of their ideas and an integral stepping stone that led to finalized pieces.

It is in a deep-dive of the process that a new story is born.

THE STUDENT-RUN FASHION SHOW

SFC and FITS, two clubs central to the fashion and sustainability scene across Cal Poly’s campus, are rooted in efforts to educate others on ethical fashion practices and host various thrifting and clothing resale events. It was only right for the clubs to merge ideas and kickstart their very own annual spring fashion show in 2022.

With “very small, humble beginnings,” as environmental management and protection senior and SFC president Lenaya Gonzales described it, the clubs’ first fashion show attracted around 100 audience members.

The show returned in 2023 with the theme “Evolution,” highlighting the clubs’ overall progress and the show’s growth — with 300 attendees and

more student designers.

This year’s SFC x FITS Spring Fashion Show, themed “Symbiosis,” will spotlight 24 collections on May 19 at Cal Poly’s Chumash Auditorium.

A planning team of 50 students consists of set and concept designers along with a construction team that brings their ideas to life, according to environmental management and protection junior and SFC secretary Jordan Langley. An operations team deals with the show’s logistics and a marketing team focuses on outreach, while press relations, show sponsors, finance and designer relations crews work to fuel the show with resources required to run it and garner an audience to watch it.

Affiliation with SFC or FITS is not required to become a designer for the spring’s show, however, many participants are already involved with Cal Poly’s fashion and sustainability community.

“You can’t really have one image of ‘Oh, who is a designer?’ because it comes from so many different places,” Gonzales said. “So many different majors and backgrounds are involved, and that’s, I think, why it is such a beautiful thing that we can all kind of come together in this one big event and celebrate and highlight them.”

The designers finished their conceptual design phase in February and have continued to develop their

works with machine sewing, runway workshops and collective thrift store trips.

“It was so amazing to see not just the different ideas and interpretations of the theme but also the different representations of those ideas,” Langley said. “A lot of them chose to write or have mood boards or sketches, and it was so amazing seeing all of those different manifestations of their thoughts.”

SEASONED DESIGNERS

Journalism junior and SFC board member Mia Anderson was always interested in fashion and sustainability, having dreamed of going to a fashion school before getting accepted to Cal Poly.

“I remember when I was younger I would buy small squares of cloth from Michaels and I would make clothing for my dolls,” Anderson said.

Growing out of certain creative phases and into new ones, Anderson spent hours making jewelry and Rainbow Loom. Anderson practiced making small creations like crocheted beanies, and more recently expanded to dresses and skirts.

Prior to the “Evolution” show, Anderson had not done much design work. Her collection featured silver chains, spikes and black clothing, allowing each piece to speak on the evolution and breakthrough of standards put on women.

“I FEEL LIKE THE FASHION SHOW LAST YEAR WAS THE FIRST THING THAT REALLY JUST BROKE ME INTO MY PASSION FOR IT NOW.”

While planning how to interpret this year’s theme for herself, Anderson has taken inspiration from Amber Kollar’s (@spicieambie on TikTok) crochet work and creative process. One of her looks will feature a floorlength crocheted dress sprinkled with beads, while another will showcase a homemade flowery mask in combination with a ruffled top, tutu skirt and ruffled leg warmers.

Pinterest has also been a helpful guide, leading Anderson to discover other creative artists who incorporate symbiosis into their work. Allowing

her own creativity to guide her, however, has been paramount to her design process.

“I just started making stuff that I knew that I would wear personally because I would say that my first year here, the way that I dressed was very catered to men,” Anderson said. “So I started dressing more for myself and the pieces that I made are just basically based off of that.”

Business administration sophomore Alexia Gonzales has designed four pieces to display at “Symbiosis.”

“I feel like the fashion show last year was the first thing that really just broke me into my passion for it now,” Gonzales said.

As a freshman, she would drive home to Temecula for several consecutive weekends at a time to use her mother’s sewing machine and dedicate time to craft her collection.

After visiting Venice, Italy, she fell in love with Renaissance art and was inspired to incorporate masquerades into her collection to convey her interpretation of mutualism.

“Back then, they would use the masks to hide the social classes between people, and that really allowed them to converse and meet new people without running the risk of talking to someone who you weren’t supposed to,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzales has worked to develop masquerade themes with the use of reds and blacks, feathers, faux leather and handmade corsets and masks.

“It’s not like I just have a whole collection right off the bat,” Gonzales said.

PHOTO | ADDY GOMEZ DESIGNER | JOSE GARCIA

-ALEXIA GONZALEZ

“It’s like I have so many sketches and I just pull what I think could kind of go together.”

Along with finding value in the longhaul process of handcrafting these collections, spending quiet weekends at her sewing machine and slowly seeing visions becoming reality, Gonzales enjoys the chance to share her work and give the community space to interact with it.

“The end product is not a representation of me, it’s more of my process. This time I’ve been shooting behind the scenes video of me fitting the models and me like literally saying ‘I don’t know if I’m doing this right,’” Gonzales said. “It is that lesson of, like, you can do it and you can also do anything and figure it out.”

NEW DESIGNERS

While this year’s fashion show will bring designers from years past, it will also showcase newcomers, like architectural engineering sophomore Asmahan Karam. As an international student from Kuwait, she grew up with fewer resources and opportunities to dive deep into a creative outlet like fashion design. Despite this, she has creative and elaborate plans for her first ever collection.

Playing on symbiotic relationships and the interconnectivity of things around her, Karam has worked to incorporate three different types of symbiotic relationships — mutualism, parasitism and commensalism — in her designs, along with themes that inspire her to create these elaborate pieces.

“It really did start with what the relationships were and what story I wanted to tell with those designs,” Karam said.

Upon taking a botany class and learning of rose thorns and their roles as protectors, she developed a design that reflected the parasitic relationship between the rose as the beauty of the flower and the thorn as a violent protector towards those who want to pick the flower.

To Karam, there’s something beautiful about “giving life by harming something else.” She aims to embody this by creating a 1960s, Audrey Hepburninspired dress style, combined with a dangerous yet elegant aesthetic that’s to come from thorns and a floral pattern.

Intrigued by the mythology of sirens and how they reflect modern society’s objectification of women, Karam

plans to illuminate this notion by ensuring it’s reflective of women’s bodies as pieces of art, instead of objects controlled by men. As someone who typically wears modest clothing, Karam plans to model this piece herself and aims to step out of her comfort zone while feeling confident in her design.

In the earliest stages of planning, Karam knew she wanted to encompass aspects of her culture and identity into the collection, deriving inspiration from Nicholas Roerich’s painting, “Mother of the World,” depicting a woman in a robe sitting around the Earth. As a Middle Eastern woman herself, including robes into her pieces is one way she can connect to things she grew up with traditionally.

Acknowledging the power of accessories and minor details, Karam plans to incorporate the Arabic word for love, “Habun” (ﺣُﺐّ ), into the makeup of her heart-inspired piece which is rooted in the heart’s relationship with veins. Karam will include

gothic-inspired styles in her layered skirts and dark colors.

“I think the word is beautiful and I wanted to really show a different way to do it with makeup,” Karam said. “I come from a place where fashion is very prevalent in everything and so I grew up seeing so many levels of it.”

Turning to the theater department’s mainstage costume designer Thomas Bernard for guidance on a piece, Karam talked through the plausibility of sewing certain aspects of her designs. Contacting fellow designers, like Jaclyn Brodersen, also allowed her to learn from more experienced students.

As their models step into the spotlight and walk the runway, clad in months of their hard work and meticulous designs, Anderson, Gonzales and Karam — along with the numerous other student designers of the show — will get to sit back with the audience and enjoy their creations.

DESIGNER | ASMAHAN KARAM

PHOTO | ADDY GOMEZ DESIGNER | ALEXIA GONZALEZ

SLO’S LOCALRAVE CULT

By Cole Pressler

Designed by Liz Ridley

Photos by Aidan Dillon

The only palpable sounds were crickets and my bike chain and a few passing cars. In the distance, the full moon lit up brushstrokes of clouds. But I was at the north edge of San Luis Obispo, where the clouds stopped, and the sky was dark.

Past a short wooden fence, through a dark dirt trail, down a sloping riverbank and next to a gushing creek, a 100-foot-long tunnel sat wrapped in rainbowed graffiti. The sewer tunnel was the perfect place for a DJ booth. Put on by .WAV Zine and Cal Poly’s Music Production Union (MPU), the tunnel was meant to solve a pressing problem in San Luis Obispo.

“The biggest issue with the music scene here is always accessibility— finding a place to play, getting there, especially because a lot of us don’t have cars,” Jahan, one of the event’s escorts (it’s easy to get lost by yourself on the way down), told me.

Noise complaints and prying eyes can quickly kill the energy at loud, bright high-powered events like this sewer rave. The music echoed across the chamber, dampened by the drone of nearby cars and the thick creek water. Lauren, who works with .WAV Zine, said they couldn’t help but get in the water at a previous event here.

“I’ve danced with the frogs,” Lauren said. “It was very refreshing, and I had a lot of tequila.”

Coordinates to the tunnel were sent over Instagram DMs to anyone who wanted them.

“It feels secretive,” Sami, another .WAV Zine member, said. “It’s fun that way, even though anyone can come.”

But not even an hour in, when the

first few dozen people had wandered down, an escort ran down, puffing with the bad news: There’s a cop. He said we have five minutes. With some grumbles, the whole thing was cleared out. Screens were shuttered, cigarettes stuffed into pockets, the table folded up and the sound equipment packed away.

“It was supposed to be a fun, ratty, individual place,” an escort named Lawrence said.

“The sewer is just a fucking cool, intimate area. There aren’t a lot of areas like that in San Luis Obispo that are safe.”

The sewer rave was a bust. To find a real party, we’d need to try a little harder than that.

The site lay on Bureau of Land Management land, tucked in the corner of San Luis Obispo County down a bumpy gravel “ROAD CLOSED” path that looked like it hadn’t been maintained in years.

Photographer Aidan Dillon and I had driven nearly an hour from Cal Poly to find this place, directed by nothing but coordinates I had received via text. There was no highway smog, no glimmers of light nearby. There weren’t even cows to stink the place up. It wasn’t just off the beaten path—this place had never even heard of the beaten path.

We couldn’t hear anything until we saw the lights. Then we felt the booming pulses. As soon as I stepped out of the car the tingly air seeped through my jacket. Glittering strobe lights bathed the wispy oak trees in red under a dome of smooth, clear stars. A DJ in a panda suit and a beanie spun discs surrounded by six booming speakers.

“

When you’re in a space where other people are feeling the same freedom, there’s nothing else that matters to anybody other than what’s going on right there.

“

KAIA ALDRIDGE

Traveling Haüs Founder & Cal Poly Business Senior

TURE

The site was protected in a few ways: it was nestled in a micro-canyon, which trapped noise from escaping over the thick walls of earth. Plus, the music at any distance was no match for what sounded like thousands of frogs in choir. Even if it was too loud, there was no one out here to complain.

The rave was organized by Traveling Haüs, a collective run by several Cal Poly students that has hosted EDM events since it was founded in 2022 by business senior Kaia Aldridge.

“There was nowhere to go dance to the kind of music I wanted to dance to,” Aldridge said.

So he decided to make those spaces himself. In addition to shows in San Luis Obispo, Haüs holds many of their events on nearby public land like ridges and campsites, and they don’t charge money for them—instead, they have suggested donations to keep the events accessible and functioning.

The goal, Aldridge said, is to let music do what it does best: break down the barriers between people.

“There’s something so powerful about being vulnerable around other people who are feeling that connection to the music,” Aldridge said.

“When you’re in a space where other people are feeling the same freedom, there’s nothing else that matters to anybody other than what’s going on right there.”

Behind the stage was a small communal camping village decorated with string lights that looked that looks like some wholesome millennials went camping. They even had a “sacred space” — a tent adorned with blowup mattresses,

surfer magazines, a mirror and more—for people to decompress and relax in solitude. It sat a handful of feet away from the speakers and you could still feel them booming from inside. It was decorated by Trinity Rowe—a rave-goer wearing a hat covered in leaves—who discovered Traveling Haüs a few years ago.

“It’s not a money guzzler,” Rowe said. “It’s just for the experience here. That’s why you have to drive 45 minutes: we’re not causing a public nuisance.”

There were five or six dozen students and San Luis Obispo locals (do you really need any more for a party?) who braved the dark backroads to get to this spot. One of them was Johnny Trolio, a sophomore at Cuesta College, who shattered his femur in a motocross crash nine months ago. He was walking on his own, having graduated from hobbling on one crutch a week earlier, and two crutches three weeks before that. The recovery wouldn’t stop him from enjoying the night.

“I’m just having a good time,” Trolio said. “If it were a bigger rave, I couldn’t take it.”

But the event was just underground enough, just small enough for him to move around freely without worrying about being crushed by a crowd.

“I’ve never been to something in the woods that feels almost illegal,” he said.

As Trolio and others danced in secret, out in the middle of nowhere, Aldridge felt satisfied with his creation.

“We all just love music,” Aldridge said. “We want to dance, feel free, we don’t want to be judged.”

Of All Respondents (409)

BY JEREMY GARZA

DESIGNED BY ARIEL SHERMAN

“On average, how many times did you consume cannabis (in any method) over the last six months?”

Of respondents who have consumed cannabis in their life (288): “At what age did you first try cannabis?”

By Zoie Denton & Lauren Emo

Designed by Aviv Kesar

CROSS W RD

Let’s

Ringed

Suffix

Dunes you can drive on