Fashioning a cause

  For one day, sophomore Karla Alvarado felt like Rachel Zoe, the Hollywood “it” stylist to the stars.  
   Her client, Flor Anorve, enters the stage to the pulsating beat of Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance.”  
   Anorve stands proud, shoulders back, and struts onto the catwalk in a striking black skirt suit, stilettos, and beaded necklace with her dark hair slicked into a low ponytail. “This is my client, Flor, and she is interviewing to become a fitness manager or instructor,” Alvarado says to the audience of friends and family. 
   This is the Runway Fashion Society’s annual event, where this year Anorve and 33 other women received makeovers and three outfits comprised of used clothing donated by Santa Ana College faculty, staff and students. Student stylists worked with one or more clients and assembled around 100 outfits from the donated clothing.
In previous years, the SAC Fashion Club held an annual student show limited to SAC students. This year, the club wanted to help women from the community who are trying to return to the workforce by providing business chic outfits they can wear to future job interviews. 
   Women were selected from applications received at the El Salvador community center in Santa Ana, SAC’s financial aid office and from acquaintances of students involved in the fashion club. 
   Planning the makeover event started last semester when the fashion design merchandising, promotions and coordination classes created the new makeover concept: providing assistance to women seeking jobs  at a time when California’s unemployment rate is at about 12 percent. 
   The challenge for the event was making it work with only $200, which is the budget given to clubs at SAC.
   Student Manny Cocina, who handled publicity for the event, said the club had to be resourceful, reach out to the community and “find other ways to not financially eat away at the school.”
   Professor of fashion and club adviser Karen Conrad Warner helped the club’s students. 
   The fashion design merchandising and promotions class secured a location at Westfield Main Place Mall, at the entrance of the Macy’s department store, by calling the Main Place coordinator and obtaining approval from Student Activities on campus. 
   “It’s a tough time these days and we wanted to give back to the community,” Warner said. “With a regular fashion show, women wouldn’t have been able to keep the clothes.” 
   Another challenge was matching the used clothes to different client body types, Warner said. 
   The fashion club also sought support from Hair California Beauty Academy, which is associated with Santiago Canyon College. Student volunteers from the beauty academy assisted with hair and makeup. 
   Cosmetics store Sephora donated goodie bags that framed the stage, with makeup samples for each client.
   Shopper Mandy Eamello noticed the women receiving makeovers and said she believes the runway program is good for people seeking an interview and increases the chance that these women will land jobs. Eamello said she knows how difficult it can be in these current economic times because she has been searching for a job herself. 
   Club president and event coordinator Nancy Barajas said that working on the event hands-on was better than reading about fashion and merchandising out of a book, and it proved to be a bonding experience.