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Evening gowns: April 5, 1995

By Shannon McEvoy-Halston

On Tuesday March 28, the second floor commons housed soirée, a Ryerson School of Fashion production which featured the evening wear designs of second-year design students.

Sixty-three gowns were featured, ranging from inspirations from the turn of the century ball gowns to chain mail. The diverse range of creations truly reflected the enormous amount of talent in this designer group.

Noteworthy designs included Lee-Anne Chase’s “Tree” dress, Angela Chen’s “fish” dress (at show time, most were alive, but a final body count has yet to be determined) and Michelle Maynard’s burgundy velvet strapless gown adorned with over 1,000 washers; these dresses reflected the fantastic, and displayed a definite sense of humour.

Also to be noted were the creations of Kelly Smith, whose turn of the century ball gown was made from untraditional fabrics, Chris Kopeck’s kimono-inspired gown, and finally Kirsten Bond’s technicolour-gypsy style piece, nearly stole the show.

Unfortunately, apathy and disorganization on the part of the show’s organizers was apparent, which in turn compromised the efforts of the designers. Nearly all the fundamental elements of a good show, such as choreography, music coordination and set design were completely disregarded or ignored.

If not for the strength of the garments themselves, the show would have been a complete bust.

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