Between the traditional costumes, the Bowdoin guys in drag, rapper Snacky Chan, and a Grease sequence, the annual ASA Fashion Show was more than any average fashion show. The event included not only students modeling Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian, and African traditional costumes, but also featured other entertainment in between to get the crowd involved and show the talent around campus.
Leeann Trang '04, Keerthi Sugumaran '06, Lisa Kurobe '05, Zaynah Rahman '05, Thu-Nga Ho '07, Jackie Linnane '07, Fariha Mahmud '06, Katie Scott '06, Linda Tan '07, and Jenny Wong '07 organized the show which played to a packed house in Smith's Morrell Lounge. Kijan Bloomfield '04 and Marc Mendoza '05 emceed the first half of the show. After the first "In the Club" section, which featured a crowd of students dancing onstage, a member of Ursus Verses spoofed Marilyn Monroe's birthday song to President Kennedy, pulling a student onstage and singing to him.
Continuing along the Marilyn Monroe thread, the next section brought out a motley crue of Bowdoin men in drag, bringing to mind her role in Some Like It Hot with the cross-dressing Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. While all of them looked terrific in their denim skirts, fishnets, and high heels, none rivaled Kareem Canada '05. With his dance moves, black midriff top, and rhinestones around his eyes, Canada put on quite a show.
Following the drag section and an Indian dance performance by Masala Bhangra, the "Around the World" section came out, featuring everything from the traditional Asian costumes to African dress from Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa. All the models walked the runway in bright, colorful costumes that well-represented the different countries. Styles from Jamaica, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, India, and Russia were also included.
In the "Guess the Celebrity" section, a prefrosh won a gift certificate to TJ Maxx for guessing the different celebrities that the models imitated. Charlie's Angels, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Antonio Banderas, Jennifer Lopez, and Jessica Simpson all showed up, and there was even a reenactment of the Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson fiasco. Luckily, there was no "wardrobe malfunction" this time.
Tejus Ajmera '04 and Lenz Balan '04 took over emceeing duties for the second half of the show, introducing the featured hip-hop artist for the night, Snacky Chan (a.k.a. Roy Kim). In the 2001 Boston Music Awards, Chan was nominated for Best New Rap/Hip-Hop Artist. His act featured his newest tunes, such as "Radio Wars" and "Big in Japan." Chan was also joined by Fraze and eL Gambina of Organic Thoughts, a hip-hop group based in Chan's home state of New Jersey. Chan's upbeat, audience-participation style fit the event well. The crowd enjoyed Chan's self-described style of "insightful, intelligent, spiritual, and humorous" music.
The rest of the fashion show included sections where audience members strutted their own creations on the runway including "La-De-Da" fashion wear, and a "junk designer wear" section. In this section, the models got creative and made their clothes out of garbage-everything from Froot Loops, Post-Its, caution tape, and tinfoil, to Corona boxes and limes.
Bowdoin's own hip-hop dance group, Obvious, also performed at the event and the show finished with a Grease medley complete with poodle skirts and rolled jeans.
Overall, the ASA Fashion Show offered much more than the usual fare and traditional costumes of fashion, entertaining the crowd with more than just clothes.