By Mia Kelley

The week of Sept. 10 to Sept. 15 was a big one for fashion lovers, especially those in New York City. Fall Fashion Week festivities have just commenced, with over 70 shows running. With hundreds of models showing off new fall collections, the week showcased the opportunity for hundreds of artists, marketers, event planners and volunteers to collaborate and shine a light on the art that gives them life: clothing.

But it’s not only high-end designers and A-list celebrities who get to experience and plan these state-of-the-art fashion shows. Several students at the University of Arkansas have had chances to trade Fayetteville for NYC a few days out of the year to volunteer at these events, get hands-on experience to advance their career plans in the industries they have been dreaming about since they were kids.

When juniors Kendal Nobrega and Madeline Secker were invited to help a clothing brand called “The Lab” for the Spring 2024 New York Fashion Week, they both knew it was an opportunity they could not pass up. Their obsession with fashion runs deep, and they said they have early memories of knowing they wanted to work in the industry.

Nobrega said that her first “aha” moment of interest towards fashion dates back to when she was six years old and was offered fashion magazines to browse through at a bridal salon.

“From there, I decided to start trying to copy the dresses for my Barbies out of socks and tissues, just to try to make clothes for them,” she said. “That’s where my relationship with the sewing side of fashion started.”

Secker said she always had an appreciation for fashion but realized that she truly wanted to work in the industry when she was a junior in high school, watching the hit show “Sex and the City” for the first time.

“I remember [Carrie Bradshaw’s] closet in her apartment, and the way that she would walk around New York City in heels every second of the day… I was like, that’s what I want to be doing,” she said. “I want to live, breathe and be in New York City, where everyone can express their fashion as who they are there.”

Secker and Nobrega were asked to fill differing volunteer roles in their time in NYC, but both were asked to help with menial tasks as needed. Secker worked in the event-planning and guest accommodation side of shows, collaborating with other PR assistants and hospitality volunteers.

“I was the one who greeted everyone; if there were very important people, I had to make sure they sat in the right spot; all the models’ parents, all of the designers’ family and friends,” Secker said.

Nobrega’s role was more involved with the preparation of garments, assisting designers, and dressing the models. She worked with the designers as they came in to make sure all their garments were prepped and ready to be on the models, spending much time unpacking, steaming, and fluffing the garments before each show.

The two would wake up at around four a.m. every morning, walk down to the design venue and assist with anywhere from four to seven shows per day.

Nobrega said that while the hours were chaotic, jam-packed, and at most times, stressful, it was incredibly fulfilling to put so much work towards showing art that they admire.

“I think my hands might still have some scars from the burns of steamers, but it was all worth it,” Nobrega said. “You could be up close and personal with garments that probably took hundreds of hours to construct, and just seeing the craftsmanship behind it was so cool.”

Aside from the new materials and tasks that Nobrega and Secker were encountering, they met many new faces in the fashion world as well, who provided guidance in their career paths.

Secker said she met a role model of hers after a show, Wilfrey Vasquez, who shared a motivating comment that keeps her striving towards her dream.

“He told me: ‘I can see that this is where you’re meant to be’, and it was so cool that he could tell how in love I am with [fashion], because I looked up to him,” she said.

Similarly, senior Abby Hutchison felt inspired by an encounter with bridalwear designer Dany Tabet when she met him during a Bridal Fashion Week trip in NYC for her job as a bridalwear consultant.

“Getting to know his background and what inspired the design that he created…I remember thinking ‘this is gonna make me be a better stylist and consultant,’’’she said.

Hutchison has visited New York Bridal Fashion Week for the past four years with her co-workers and bosses at Tesori Bridal, a local bridalwear store in Fayetteville. Through this opportunity, she has gotten a look into the role of being a fashion buyer for a clothing brand, as Tesori chooses their new styles and designers they will supply based on their viewings during the week in NYC.

“[Curating] looks with brides is something that I find so much joy in, and getting to be a bridal consultant gives you the opportunity to do something with fashion that leads to creating relationships,” Hutchison said.

Her experience meeting with designers and curating the looks that Tesori will bring home to Fayetteville for their next season has given her glimpses of what her future career could be like post-graduation.

“[Going to New York Bridal Fashion Week] I was like, that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life,” Hutchison said.

College students often hear the advice that content in class is vital to learning, but real-world experience is what cultivates true growth and success in a career field. Secker, Nobrega, and Hutchison all said that their time in NYC and being ingrained in the wave of the industry for even a short week reaffirmed their choice to work in fashion post-grad, teaching them abundantly more than a classroom ever could.

And while media depictions of the fashion industry can illustrate it as a sometimes surface-level, terse and militant one, students, i.e. the next generation of fashion designers, stylists, and creative directors, are the ones who choose to make their careers unique and personable to them and their attributes.

“It’s very much an industry that’s all about connections, who you know and how well you are within it and you can’t let it harden your heart,” Secker said. “If this is something you want to do, you have to fight for it, you have to fight for who you are, and keep going.”