Homme Q&A

HOMME Q&A

A Q&A with Matt Welsh, President of Homme Men’s Fashion Organization.

WORDS BY Tessa Poulain

ILLUSTRATIONS BY Sarah Riedlinger

A new semester always welcomes new activities, clubs and organizations around campus. Many are seen at BlastOff each year, but there are always some organizations formed after August that many students aren’t aware of. One of these organizations is Homme: the first and only organization dedicated to men’s fashion on Kent State’s campus. Many conversations in the fashion world revolve around a woman’s figure, but the board members running Homme sensed the lack of conversation about men’s fashion and thus, Homme was born. I conversed with president Matt Welsh over email to learn more.

Q: About how many people are a part of Homme?

A: Since we launched our organization last September, we have 25 paid members and over a hundred people on our email list.

Q: How many board members? Who are they?

A: We have six board members running the organization. I’m the organization’s founder and current president. Tyler Turskey is the organization coordinator responsible for reporting important emails and information to the executive board. Aaron Touris is our graphic designer and helps with the creative side of the organization. Alex Towcimak is a creative consultant for Homme. Scott Earley is the treasurer responsible for all financial needs. Natalie Krutsch is the organization secretary. We are all sophomore fashion students, except Tyler whose a sophomore architecture student. And Tammy Cullen is our wonderful academic advisor.

Q: What is Homme? Why did you decide on the name, “Homme?”

A: Homme Men’s Fashion Organization is the first and only student organization on campus that strives to share interest in menswear and men’s fashion. We named the organization “Homme” for two reasons: it’s a French word meaning “man,” and it has a powerful and professional sound when it’s pronounced.

Q: Why was it started?

A: We started the organization for mainly one reason. It had to be done. As most of our executive board is sophomore fashion design / merchandising students (plus one architect), we felt a lack of presence within the menswear community on campus, in the classroom and out. A lot of the fashion design courses here are crafted towards learning about the female figure and women’s wear. There needed to be a course or organization that could shed some light on the male aspect of the fashion industry to even the playing field. Now, with this organization being a real deal, it gives students who are interested in men’s fashion an outlet to communicate, learn, and meet new people. Hopefully in the future, this organization can give high school graduates another reason to apply to the Fashion School at Kent State.

Q: What is your main goal with this organization?

A: Our main goal is to provide a space for community, learning and networking opportunities for the fashion enthusiast.

Q: Do any of you design any men’s fashion or do you just meet and talk about art and fashion?

A: The entire executive board of Homme designs clothing and art. We love creating things and sharing our work with others.

Q: Would you consider a Homme meeting to be a safe space for a minority e.g. LGBTQA+, African Americans, etc.? Are there members in the group that belong to these minorities?

A: Homme does not discriminate toward anybody who attends or shows interest in our events. We have a lot of people that show up to our events who are of different genders, ethnicities and school majors.

Q: Is there anything you would like people to know about Homme?

A: We’d like to let people know that since we are a new organization on campus, we’re always open to take advice and ideas for future events and ways to improve the organization.

Q: Could you be a part of this group even if you weren’t super into fashion but wanted to know more about it and make friends/ connections?

A: We encourage anybody and everybody to attend our events. Everybody who attends brings their buddies and we all have a good time.

Q: What kind of events do you host on campus e.g. trivia nights, any fashion shows, art shows, etc.?

A: Since September, we have hosted six events. We have hosted a vintage clothing seminar, menswear clothing swap, Alexander McQueen documentary screening, two fashion trivia contests, and most recently, a documentary screening of the Italian fashion house, Off-White c/o Virgil Abloh. Within the rest of the Spring 2019 semester, we have plans to host a sewing production seminar and a shoe building workshop.

Q: How often do you meet? When and where?

A: We try and host meetings once or twice a month. We are a brand new organization so we are still in the learning process of hosting events on campus. So although we may not have weekly meetings, the events we do host are well worth the wait.

Q: Do you need to fill out any sort of application or subscribe to an email list to attend these meetings? How can people get informed when the next meeting will occur?

A: Most of our events we host are “All Access” meaning that anybody and everybody can attend. We sometimes host meetings that are for paid members onl,y giving the organization somewhat of an exclusive side to it. For the most part, we encourage all men and women who are interested in fashion to attend our events and check it out! We have an Instagram where we post weekly about what’s going on with Homme which can be found @HommeKent. We also have an email where we send out weekly reminders of what is going on.

TESSA POULAIN | tpoulain@kent.edu