Emilia-Louise Scott
February 03, 2017 7:38 AM
Fashion Club (Room Four) by Emilia-Louise Scott
Emmy-Lou knew fashion inside out but it was forever changing. She was always keeping up with the latest trends and styles and provided her Fashion Club attendees with magazines that would keep them in the know too. But there was more to fashion than that. Emmy-Lou had always enjoyed finding her own style and one day hoped to become one of those big names who had the power to create the trends. She wanted to give those in Fashion Club the opportunity to explore the wonders of fashion in whichever way they chose. She wanted to stimulate creative minds. Everyone had a creative mind, she was sure - some just had a harder time finding that than others.She had made sure to host mini fashion shows for the members of the club for each season throughout the year, using her connections to get in stylish outfits. One thing that the students who attended the club had in common was a love for fashion, whatever their individual style, and she was sure they must enjoy this treat.
Summer was fast approaching so Emmy-Lou had recently held a mini fashion show with that in mind. And then she’d set them a challenge. It was to create a summer accessory and then they could have a sort of show and tell. It wasn’t a huge competition as the accessories could be anything, depending on how much effort they wished to put into it - they could decorate a pair of sunglasses, dye patterns on a light scarf, or create a beach bag. Emmy-Lou hadn’t given them time to come up with an entire outfit, specifying to just pick one accessory, because some students would soon have exams they needed to focus on. It was just supposed to be a bit of fun, so no one needed to stress about the quality of their creation, and they were allowed to work together.
That was the thing about Emmy’s club. She wanted everyone to be happy and enjoy it, as well as be adventurous and open-minded, so she was never strict when she set them fun challenges and tasks. It was all optional. This wasn’t class, so they could still be a part of the club without doing the things she suggested. Although the more people who talk part the better, of course. Emmy-Lou kept her suggestion box in the room so that members of the club could share their own wishes or ideas, as well as encouraging them to just talk to her. She considered herself an approachable person but she still knew that some people could be shy or worry that their idea wasn’t good and didn’t want to look stupid. But Emmy didn’t think ideas could be stupid. There were obviously going to be things that they couldn’t feasibly do or just wouldn’t be popular enough with everyone but no one’s ideas were stupid, not here anyway. In the fashion world you could be as creative and out there as you liked and it could lead you to great success.
Today those who had taken part in the summer accessory challenge would be showing off their creations and Emmy-Lou had made it clear that even those who hadn’t taken part should still come along to check out what the others had made and ask questions about why they’d done certain things or what had inspired them, if they wanted. Because she knew how some people dreaded public speaking, she’d also offered people the opportunity to leave their accessories on a table to one side so Emmy would show them off to everyone if they didn’t want to speak. The last thing she wanted was someone’s work not to get shown because she knew how nice it was to see one’s handiwork be appreciated.
She didn’t want to put anyone’s work down but she had a special prize for the most popular item so she wanted people to vote on their favourite. Only one person could win but that meant plenty of others wouldn’t so they would know that that didn’t mean their creation was bad as they would all be in the same boat. It really came down to taste but Emmy-Lou imagined the person (or people) who had put in the most effort would have the most popular product. She also had some smaller prizes for everyone who took part in creation, but they didn’t need to know that just yet.
The club members knew that the first prize was two tickets to a Valois fashion show in the US in the summer, which would no doubt be a great incentive because that was a Big Deal. She highly doubted any of the students (besides Louis of course) would have ever been to one of the Valois fashion shows. Emmy-Lou was amazed that she’d managed to get her hands on them, although it had of course all been thanks to Louis. She was rather nervous about it and hoped that whoever won would act appropriately and not make her regret making such a huge request of her best friend. Her other prizes were gift tokens for a few American clothing stores (not in the same league as the fashion house Valois of course, because that really would be expensive), but she hadn’t told the club about that.
“Welcome to the our last club meeting of the year everyone,” Emmy-Lou smiled at the group of students before her. “Please get seated and put your creations on the table if you haven’t already. I’m sure you’re all keen to get on with showing us what you’ve been working on but before we do that, I’d just like to say a big thank you to all of you for coming to Fashion Club this year. I’ve had tremendous fun and I hope you all can say the same. I’m really impressed with how much we’ve covered the boards this year too, and look forward to seeing more from you next term!”
Emmy-Lou loved having the inspiration boards around the room and she was really pleased with how they’d been filled up, but nevertheless she planned started them afresh at the start of each term. She always encouraged the club to add them whenever they found something they liked - be it a picture, a quote, a nice fabric or colour swatch, a dress design, anything. They were also allowed to keep anything they worked on in the room, but Emmy-Lou suspected most would wanted to keep those for themselves and put them to use.
“Right, without further ado, who would like to go first with showing us your product?” Emmy-Lou asked, smiling at the group. She didn’t mind what order the group wanted to come up in but she expected most of them would be enthusiastic about it. “Take it away,” she beamed at the first person to step up to the plate, moving to sit down at one side where she would help out if they didn’t know what to say about their accessory, or if the rest of group didn’t know what kind of questions to ask.
OOC: Sorry I’ve been a terrible host this year and haven’t got a meeting up until now but I think from this post you can get an idea of the sort of things they’ve been doing, and there’s also the first meeting from last year which outlines what Emmy-Lou’s original plans were. If anyone has any suggestions their character would make for things they want to do in the club, you may tag Emmy at any time or catch me in chatzy. Thanks to Louis Valois' author for the generous first prize.
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