Fashion Show in 8 days and 3 hours of practice
Our last fashion show was held on August 20, 2016 at Federation of Indian Association annual event called India Festival. Since 2016, we had not been back on the FIA at the India Festival – the largest South Asian event in Columbus, Ohio. 2022, was the year we chose to get back up on that stage, post COVID years.
As you know Arne Boutique is a Mother Daughter team, so to pull of a fashion show we had to reach out to our connections. Mom reached out to the FIA committee asking if we could do a Fashion Show, for which we got approval. The show would be held on Saturday August 20th.
Now it was only about pulling off a fashion show is not as easy as you think, you are faced with a lot of challenges: Recruiting, Planning, Music, Choreography, Hair, Makeup etc. to name a few.
I conversed this idea with the same team that planned the Fashion Show last year and we arrived at the conclusion that it is difficult but not impossible to pull this fashion show off. The next step is solve the challenges that we would face and everything to be done in 8 days as 9th day would be the big show!
Day 1-3: The Recruiting, the Music Prep, and theme prep
An e-mail was sent out to get feelers on who would be able and willing to participate in the fashion show this year. Also, Columbus Ohio is a hub for Fashion due to the large clothing industry being presented here - due to which we reached out to the contacts we had to get models for our Indian Fashion show. There was hard core recruiting that went on for three continuous days.
At the same time, I reached out to DJ Trik, to see if we could get music together for the show. He very graciously accepted and we got the music going.
At the end of 3 days, we had approximately 14 minutes of music and approximately 20 participants. As per the theme, we decided to showcase the epitome of Indian Clothing that is sarees.
Our theme was to highlight the Saree materials from all across India in their specialty clothing.
Day 3-6: The co-ordination of practice and ordering of clothes
In order to pull a quality product it is important to have the best sarees from all across India. This was the biggest challenge that we faced as we did not have enough time but the list of tasks kept increasing each day. About Day 4 we got the clothes selected and ordered from India and expressed shipped. Everything set to be arriving on Day 8.
While this was going on the co-ordination of practices began as we found a choreographer who had worked with us before. Our expectations were made clear with the Choreographer and the goal of this fashion show. Our Choreographer was very accommodating and understood where we came from. We decided to have 2 practices and 1 dress rehearsal. A total of 3 Hours of Practices.
Days 6-9: Practices
Once our practices started, it was more of a roller coaster than you could have imagined. We had about 20 people, combination of approximately 15 females, 3 males, 4 kids. Managing 22 people was a challenge, but what made it more difficult was the fact that there wasn't much of a plan. This is something that was the most difficult thing for me as I like a plan but I had to just wing it due to the lack of time availability.
There were many preparations that needed to take place before the practices started the stage had to be marked, snacks and water was arranged for the participants.
First practice was coordinating the people in groups and teaching them how to walk. The primary purpose of this year’s show was to put something that gets us noticed and does the marketing for the store.
Second practice consisted of some drop outs and finalizing the walk and coordinating for the show – which now consisted of 20 people for the show.
Alterations of clothes began for the people that did not drop out.
Day 10: The Big Show!
The day of the show everything came together and the show was loved by everyone involved. The feedback we received was positive and the show was a success.
The pictures from the day of the event will be published shortly! :)
