A disco ball swayed gently in the wind, hanging above the red carpet as the audience hushed in anticipation. As the show began, students leaned forward, watching as their friends came strutting down the runway, draped in glimmering, earth-toned pieces.
On Friday, April 10, the Office of Black Student Affairs (OBSA), in collaboration with the Benton Museum of Art, hosted DAWN: Blaremont Fashion Show.
The show consisted of 10 student-pioneered looks, designed from start to finish by a combination of student creatives Biruk Gizaw PO ‘26 and La’Nae Fernandes SC ‘28. The looks reimagined elements of the natural world, particularly through an anti-colonial lens.
“We wanted to build a narrative and also create pieces that would fit into the idea of Blackness without colonial influence,” Fernandes said. “We were talking a lot about nature and spirituality, so we settled on the themes of nature and soul.”
Some outfits were inspired by the elements, such as wind and water. Other looks were inspired by astronomy, with one evoking the sun and another capturing the night sky. Each walk down the runway was prefaced by a short piece of spoken-word poetry, written by Gizaw and Fernandes themselves. The looks were modeled by Gizaw and Fernandes’ friends and fellow OBSA members, making the show a truly community-led effort.
“We wanted to make sure that there was Black creativity throughout every single part of the show,” Fernandes said.
Gizaw and Fernandes’ show was supported and funded through a Black Visionary Fund grant that OBSA awarded to Gizaw.
The Black Visionary Fund is a creative development program that funds and platforms Black students at the Claremont Colleges to pursue creative and professional projects. BLAREMONT MAG, OBSA’s student-led publication, states that the program is built upon the idea that “Black creative vision deserves infrastructure, not just recognition.”
This fund creates space for students’ ideas to materialize, a fundamental aspect of developing a legacy of Black creativity on campus. Other student-led projects funded by the grant include music and film production, photography and content creation campaigns.
“I think it’s important to have faith in the work that students do,” Lydia Middleton, Director and Dean of Students of OBSA, said. “We don’t need to give them a lot of oversight, just give them support and let them create. You can see the personal meaning that the projects had for themselves and for what it means to be a Black person creating on this campus.”
Middleton’s words rang true as the night’s celebrations unfolded. The show began and concluded with performances from Earthtones — The Claremont Colleges’ all-Black acapella group on campus — which both Gizaw and Fernandes are a part of.
The group performed a moving rendition of “Stand By Me,” their legacy song. Gizaw has cited his experiences with Earthtones as a foundational inspiration for DAWN.
“[Being a part of] Earthtones gives me a strong connection to the Black community on campus,” Gizaw said. “It helped me find people [whom] I really relate to that I was able to connect to more strongly. Before Earthtones, I hadn’t had spaces to meet these people as easily.”
Gizaw’s experience with Earthtones highlighted the power of a creative community for Black students, motivating him to establish a similar space on campus for Black fashion designers.
“The main reason [for having an all-Black show] was [because of] my experience in Earthtones,” Gizaw said. “I wanted to emulate that and have people see that there’s somebody willing to create these spaces for fashion design.”
The success of the DAWN show illustrates the importance of supporting Black creativity on campus, and the confidence and community institutional support can bring. When campus resources are allocated for student-led projects, creativity can flourish.
“Growing up in Minnesota, I never had a lot of Black friends or a strong Black community that I felt like I was able to go to for support or go to for resources,” Fernandes said. “Having this on campus space that is able to provide that funding and support and give us the space to be creative in the way we want to, and then also have the opportunity to share that creativity with all Black models and another Black designer was very surreal.”