College Town Kent hosted the second annual For the Love of Fashion Show Friday night at the Kent State University Hotel, to present the latest spring collections from local companies.

The fashion show featured clothing and accessories from: One Love Yoga Boutique, Gracylane, Carnaby Street Style, UniversiTees and RUSH: Dino Palmieri Salon and Spa.

The show also included local restaurants that offered free samples of food to guests prior to the start of the show.

The restaurants at the show included: Bar 145, Dave’s Cosmic Subs, Fresco Mexican Grill & Salsa Bar, Insomnia Cookies, Newdle Bar and Panini’s Bar & Grill.

Vendors at the fashion show included: Her Campus Kent State, The Landmark at Kent and Avant 220.

The show had sold out and the first 100 guests received a gift bag full of items from the participating retailers.

Emma Kennell, owner of Carnaby Street Style, said the For the Love of Fashion Show is a great way to promote the store’s new spring apparel.

“This fashion show is something fun to do, and it is a good way to get exposure and introduce our whole new spring collection,” Kennell said.

Tim Huth, owner of One Love Yoga Boutique, said that he chose to put clothing in the show to help raise awareness of the company within the community.

“We chose to have our products featured in the show to help put our message out there, as far as what we do as a company. We have an eco-friendly boutique combined with yoga,” Huth said.  

Each store chose their latest clothing, apparel and accessories to be modeled in this year’s fashion show.

Tyler Cronie, a junior computer information systems major, was one of the models selected to represent UniversiTees in the fashion show this year.

“My experience in the show was fantastic. I modeled a fabulous set from UniversiTees that included a rain jacket and an umbrella,” Cronie said. “I also modeled a great Kent State Alumni shirt, representing what I hope to be next year.”

All proceeds from the show went to benefit the Alpha Xi Delta-Beta Tau Foundation supporting Autism Speaks.

Kristin Hayes, president of Alpha Xi Delta, said in order to have the proceeds donated to their philanthropy, Alpha Xi Delta had to compete against the other sororities on campus.

“Alpha Xi Delta participated in a social media contest against the other sororities on campus,” Hayes said. “This contest involved taking photos of College Town Kent, our chapter and our philanthropy event. The sorority that received the most likes and retweets on these posts got the opportunity to help co-sponsor this event.”

Andrea Diese, a junior business management major and member of Alpha Xi Delta, said the members of the sorority volunteered for different jobs. They each helped promote the show on social media to raise as much awareness as possible.

“We’ve been promoting the show all over social media, and we’ve done a lot of selling tickets before hand. Sisters have been taking tickets and selling them to their friends and family members in effort to promote the show,” Diese said. “It’s great to see all the people that came out tonight.”

 Emily Mico, a sophomore criminology and justice studies major and member of Alpha Xi Delta, said the fashion show was a great opportunity to raise money towards the sorority’s philanthropy.

“This experience has been really cool. We got to do a lot of behind the scenes work, along with being out in the lobby and working a table for Autism Speaks,” Mico said. “Working the table is great because we get to interact with everyone who came tonight, and overall it’s just been a really cool experience to know that we are working for something that’s going toward our philanthropy.”

Taylor Pierce is a fashion reporter for The Kent Stater, contact her at [email protected]