Last Friday, EcoPax and Advocates hosted their first fashion show and clothing swap in Newcomer 19. The event brought over 50 students, and highlighted the importance of sustainability in fashion, alongside the potential for personal style to be empowering.

Advocates is Goshen College’s LGBTQ+ affinity group, with Lydia Esh, a senior social work major, and Peace Muhagachi, a senior sociology major, as vice president and president respectively. 

Esh said the planning was stressful since the event happened so soon after fall break. “We were trying to figure out all the things before break hit, and it felt a little bit rushed, but I think we managed to lock in and band together and reach out to people for modeling,” 

EcoPax, GC’s environment-based affinity group, holds two clothing swaps every year to provide an opportunity for students to practice sustainable fashion choices. 

Carmen Merino, a senior biology major and president of EcoPax, said that this collaboration with Advocates was a way to “provide and encourage the use of more inclusive clothing choices, but also sustainable clothing choices.”

“I proposed that we make [the clothing swap] into a fashion show. Let’s go a step beyond — let’s empower these individuals — give them an opportunity to express themselves in their entirety,” Merino said. “Let’s make space for this collaboration of sustainable fashion in inclusive ways.”

Esh said, “It was really cool to see what everyone came up with and their style that they wanted to showcase because style is just such a personal part of someone, and to see people [say], ‘Yeah, I want to show it off,’ it’s really cool.”

Advocates originally reached out with the idea of a collaboration after a student inquired about where they could find gender-affirming clothes. Esh said, “Fashion can be very gender-affirming and a perfect place to explore that is college.”

Gustavo Gonzalez, a junior math education major, was one of the students who walked in the fashion show. Gonzalez said about his experience, “I’ve never done anything before in relation to modeling … but I saw that there [were] posters and they also posted on their Instagram that they were looking for models, and I [realized] that lands on a Friday — which … I always tend to dress up on Friday … I was like, wait, this will line up perfectly.”

“I went in and [thought] ‘Wow, there are so many clothes around.’ It was a really fun atmosphere — they had some really fun music.” 

Gonzalez was the first on the runway and chose to walk to the song “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. “I ended up being followed by my friend Bennett [Silveus], so that was really cool to be able to walk out with friends as well following me.”

Both Esh and Merino said their favorite part of the event was watching people walk the stage.

 “We had models who we picked out, but as we went through the event some people volunteered and they walked or they walked with their friends and they were showing off their style,” Esh said. “It was just fun because we didn’t know how it was going to go.”

Merino said, “We had all sorts of different athletes and just people of different identities, and gender orientations, sexual orientations, get out there on that stage and simply be.”

“Everybody there was diverse in their own way simply because they were and we were in a space without judgment,” Merino said. “[Watching] everybody that was there get up on that stage and … embrace themselves in their entirety, and have the courage to walk down that stage and strike a pose — [was the] best feeling in the world.”