Budding talent on the runway
Student creations impress teachers, parents, friends and fans of fashion at the annual Ready to Shine show.
“Not all the seams were straight, but that’s the beauty of kids growing and learning.”
Sandra Woitas
If you stumbled upon the third annual Ready to Shine fashion show at Kingsway Mall last Thursday, you probably thought it was another glitzy showcase from a big-name retailer.
An L-shaped runway surrounded itself with makeupmelting lights. VIPs sat stillettoed heel to stillettoed heel in the front row. Professional photographers twisted and turned their cameras to catch the perfect snap.
Everyone in the audience dressed on-trend, flaunting teased hair and clutch purses reserved for special occasions where an oversized bag would seem plebeian. And on the runway, garments mimicked those found in glossy magazine editorials.
Ready to Shine was nothing short of a professional fashion experience. The catch? All the designs were created by Edmonton public high school students.
“Not all the seams were straight, but that’s the beauty of kids growing and learning,” said Edmonton Public Schools Foundation director Sandra Woitas. “It was an authentic student design fashion show. It was the best effort they could possibly give, and that was the most important.
“It always warms my heart to give kids an opportunity to shine.”
Ready to Shine aspires to encourage, mentor and challenge students in fashion studies classes across the city. The event, a partnership between Kingsway Mall and the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation, saw around 50 Grade 11 and 12 students from seven different high schools take part. Nearly 300 spectators attended.
The event also aims to raise funds to provide full-day kindergarten classes for kids in socially vulnerable neighbourhoods. Ticket sales brought in over $26,000, an amount Woitas said would put six children in kindergarten classes for a year.
This year, each school was assigned a media personality from local newspapers, radio and television stations to model three outfits — a casual top, recycled career skirt and a black tie event dress — made from fabrics donated by Estee’s Fabrics & Notions. I was asked to be the celebrity model for Harry Ainlay and was thrilled to join in the fun.
Other celebrity models included CTV’s Stacey Brotzel and Brenna Rose, Global’s Carole-Anne Devaney and Su- Ling Goh, 100.3 The Bear’s Gillian Foote, Breakfast Television’s Michelle McDougall and the Sun’s Pamela Roth.
Participating schools included Harry Ainlay, Amiskwaciy Academy, L.Y. Cairns, M.E. LaZerte, Jasper Place, Ross Sheppard and W.P. Wagner.
Terri-Lynn Hyland, fashion studies teacher from Harry Ainlay, has done Ready to Shine for the past three years. It’s “a lot of stress and pressure” to make sure all the ends meet, but being able to watch her students’ creations come to life is worth it.
Hyland noticed incredible growth and dedication fire up in her kids over the project’s three-month period.
“It just keeps them so much more accountable,” Hyland said. “Doing something that they know is going to be showcased makes it so much more important to them, so you see that extra effort. You see them coming in at lunch. You see them coming in after school and trying to get it finished and trying to make it perfect and poring over their drawings.”
Three of Hyland’s Grade 11 students — Tiffany Le, 17, Tolgonai Isaeva, 17, and Zoe Ogg, 16 — couldn’t stop beaming after the show. Still on an adrenalin high, Isaeva gushed about the opportunity to “almost be a designer” and “experience something you only see on TV.”
“Honestly, the energy here was just amazing,” Le said.
“It was nice to see the other designers cheer for you, even though they didn’t know you,” Ogg added.
“It was just really exciting overall to have our work be seen by other people,” concluded Isaeva.