The School of Fashion had its third annual Virtual Fashion Show Tuesday, featuring original designs created by students using CLO 3D software.

Professor Margarita Benitez said this type of software has been around for a while, but the fashion industry really embraced it during the pandemic.

“So many students use this software for design development, but it’s also just a very beautiful software. There’s so much science that goes into the physics of the fabric, so it’s really cool to be able to see it on a big screen,” Melanie Mitchell, master’s fashion industry studies student, said. 

The event took place at the Blank_Lab located inside the Design Innovation Hub. The room has projectors lining the walls, and the designs were shown on a seven minute loop to create a runway experience. 

There were refreshments outside of the room for the overflowing crowd to enjoy while they waited for their turn to watch the show.

There were 17 students’ designs on display, totaling to about 30 different designs. 

“The first year we did this there were only seven students, but the past two years, there have been 17,” Benitez said. “Maybe with the excitement from this year, there will be more next year.” 

 Mitchell created three different designs using the CLO 3D software. 

“I did a three-piece collection that uses patterns of basic things that you would find in the thrift store,” Mitchell said. “I wanted to use that specifically to show how we could take things that would end up in the landfill and rework them into cute outfits and interesting dresses.” 

Benitez said this is more cost effective for students because they bring designs to life before making a stitch or purchasing fabric.

“It’s very sustainable because when you usually produce garments, you have to get samples sent to you back and forth and then fit them on people, and using an avatar, you can virtually fit your samples,” she said. 

According to Benitez, they plan on switching to a different software next year. 

“It’s [the software] super smart, so we started teaching it here to our students,” she said. “After many meet-ups and getting students to familiarize themselves to it, we decided we should showcase what they have done.” 

Laci Schritz is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].