ART/EMIS to host green fashion show

After months of rummaging through Goodwill and designing looks for student models, the ART/EMIS fashion show team are making the finishing touches ahead of their “Next in Line” show Friday. 

Founded in Fall 2016, ART/EMIS brings together student creatives who explore intersectional feminism through film, dance, visual art, theatre, music, digital media and more. The club hosts monthly events focused on uplifting marginalized voices on campus, such as March’s staging of the multimedia art show Virgin Creek. 

ART/EMIS also produces around three large-scale creative projects per semester after accepting pitches from students twice a year. In November, the group hosted a comic book showcase and an immersive dramatic performance. Their latest project, “Next in Line,” was pitched originally by Lina Rehbein, who serves as the project’s creative director. 

Rehbein, a sophomore majoring in environmental studies, initially pitched her idea in October after hearing about the opportunity from her roommate. Since then, Rehbein has spent six months finding her team, thrifting fabrics, casting models, securing venues and creating accessories. 

“It’s just been a million things going on at once in the best way possible,” Rehbein said.

Shortly after ART/EMIS sponsored her idea, Rehbein recruited team members, mainly through posts on social media. Her current team consists of herself, eight designers and 13 models. 

Through this fashion show, Rehbein has combined her talents in fashion and sewing with her passion for sustainability, all while simultaneously connecting with peers who are equally invested in environmentally-friendly fashion.

“Everything [was] sourced from Goodwill, which has been tedious at times — a lot of digging, a lot of hours spent just rummaging through — but we found what we needed, and I think everyone really made the most out of whatever they did find,” Rehbein said.

“Next in Line” has worked as a new and inspiring creative outlet for student designers, including Rachel Bakke, a junior majoring in computer science. 

“I’ve always been crafty,” Bakke said. “I’ve always been interested in upcycling and hemming or fixing clothes that I currently have, but this has been the first time that I’ve actually made full outfits from scratch… [Majoring] in CS, you don’t have a lot of creative space and freedom. I’ve really gained that feeling of being an artist and a designer, and just experiencing that with other people too, building off each other’s ideas and having that exciting connection.”

Annie Zheng, a sophomore majoring in media arts and practice, works closely with the Next in Line team as a member of the ART/EMIS executive board. In her eyes, the inspiration behind the fashion show exemplifies ART/EMIS’ mission.

“The theme is royalty, but we’re reimagining it to not be Eurocentric,” Zheng said. “For this project, our entire team is so diverse — the models, the designers, the producers. There are a lot of people whose identities don’t really fall into the traditional, binary categories of gender, sexuality or other identity markers.”

The tickets for the event, which were released for free to the public March 25, sold out in less than four hours. Next in Line expects to host 125 guests at their show, premiering this Friday at 8 p.m. at the USC Hotel, which will feature performances from the Ocean Saints, a Los Angeles-based student DJ duo, and Ashley Taylor, a freshman majoring in music industry.

Though Rehbein remains unsure of the show’s future, she said she hopes the fashion show will be a recurring event and sees a demand for future fashion shows on campus. 

“There’s such a huge interest in fashion at USC given that we’re in L.A.,” Rehbein said. “And, it’s such an untapped field. I definitely wanted to create a space where everyone could have that creative voice, and then seeing their things up on a runway is super exciting.”