Nearly 500 people gathered to watch student designs grace the catwalk at the San Francisco Design Center Galleria, Thursday, April 28, for “Runway 2016: Emerge,” SF State’s 21st annual spring runway show.

“Emerge” was produced entirely by students — juniors and seniors from the apparel design and merchandising department in collaboration with students from BECA. They handled everything from stage installation and lighting, to projection screens and music, to PR and ticket sales, to the hand-patterned and draped garments that stole the spotlight.

Apparel design and merchandising professor Connie Ulasewicz and BECA professor Hamid Khani served as advisors to the students.

The show consisted of four segments: wearable tech designs, which were showcased on mannequins on the runway as guests arrived;  reuse designs, upcycled from unsellable materials donated by the University Bookstore; collections, created by senior design students; and a video segment produced for apparel design assistant professor Kelly Reddy-Best, who is leaving the department after this semester.

“The students are hoping that they could get jobs after this, that people see their pieces on the runway and that the company may want that kind of design influence, or designer, or detail in the clothes in their collections,” Ulasewicz said.

Apparel design major Sydney Beres, a junior in the program who had two looks in the show, said she was proud to see everything come together after a long semester of preparation.

“It’s a lot of energy leading up to the show actually going on, so it’s just kind of like a sigh of relief,” Beres said.

Read more: https://goldengatexpress.org/2016/05/03/students-designs-take-the-runway-in-emerge/