At our weekly Fashion Show meeting this past Thursday, February 28, we got a lot done:
1) In keeping with the spirit of Purim, which was last week, we announced on Shushan Purim that we would be selecting our models by casting lots, that is by choosing names from a bag. On Thursday morning, during our meeting, we sent girls from the fashion team around the school to see which female students wanted to submit their names. We'll be selecting our models this week.
2) In the meantime, members of the Fashion team working as designers began to plan what kind of outfits they wanted their models to wear. The juniors are working on one set of designs for models dressed as professionals. That's to represent the daughters of Tzlafchad, who in the Torah ask Moses if they can inherit their father's land even though they aren't men. Yeah, those girls went there, even though they lived during Biblical times! Here are the junior ideas so far:
Welcome to the new freshman designer team, made up of Miriam, Ayelet, Jessica and Racheli. Those girls are already hard at work.
3) The Finance team is busy finding out how we can work with Not for Sale to promote the organization and the work it does before and during our event. Here is the latest script we wrote for Caroline and Julia, who are going to contact Not for Sale:
Of course, we made sure Not for Sale has 501 (c) 3 status -- meaning it's a non-profit -- but we also used social media to make certain it had enough Likes on Facebook to be considered a popular organization. It's not UNICEF, which had 2.4 million Likes the day we checked FB, but it had 44,000, which is respectable!
4) The Arts team is working on the art exhibit for the fashion show. The art will focus on subjugation of women still happening in the world today. We've decided to do a photo exhibit and modify images using apps or other digital media. We'll line one wall of the auditorium with those photos. Right now, The Arts team is conducting research on human trafficking; Elisheva found the following site, which we posted on our Facebook page last week:
5) Finding kosher Fair Trade foods is harder than we thought it would be. Faculty advisor Mrs. Ahuva Mantell has been hard at work trying to find food traded fairly that has proper kosher supervision. Her efforts and the Health and Environment team's cooking event on Thursday night led us to pose the question of whether kosher supervision should mean not only that a food has been prepared according to Jewish law and but also in an ethical manner. Share your answer on our FB page:
“IT OUGHT TO CONCERN EVERY PERSON, BECAUSE IT IS A DEBASEMENT OF OUR COMMON HUMANITY. IT OUGHT TO CONCERN EVERY COMMUNITY, BECAUSE IT TEARS AT OUR SOCIAL FABRIC. IT OUGHT TO CONCERN EVERY BUSINESS, BECAUSE IT DISTORTS MARKETS. IT OUGHT TO CONCERN EVERY NATION, BECAUSE IT ENDANGERS PUBLIC HEALTH AND FUELS VIOLENCE AND ORGANIZED CRIME. I’M TALKING ABOUT THE INJUSTICE, THE OUTRAGE, OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING, WHICH MUST BE CALLED BY ITS TRUE NAME — MODERN SLAVERY.”
It's confirmed: part of the proceeds of the Who's the Fairest of Them All?, our Fashion Show this year, is going to Not for Sale, an organization that works to end slavery. Also confirmed is our Fashion Show date: May 19!
Here's a video from the founder of Not for Sale:
We may want to consider the ethical products available from the Not for Sale store: Not for Sale Store, and we also want to contact the organization to see how we can work together for the show.
Finance
Speaking of making contacts, we also worked on a script for the girls on the show's finance team. Those girls are going to be contacting vendors who will sell their ethical products at the show.
Here's our script:
Script for Vendor
Hi, my name is _________________, and I’m calling from The Frisch School. We’re making a fashion show for women only on May 19 called “Who’s the Fairest of Them All?” and we’re focusing on fair food and fair trade practices. Our school has over 500 students and is connected to the local Bergen County community, and an active parent association and alumni network. We’re donating part of the proceeds from the show to the school and part to Not for Sale, an organization that works to end slavery around the world.
We wanted to bring in vendors to sell products that are in line with our ethical fashion focus and fashion in general. Before and after the show, anyone attending will have time to shop and eat fair trade food products. Since you sell ___________, we wanted to know if you wanted to display and sell your merchandise at our show. Script for Fair Trade Chocolate or Coffee Donation
Hi, my name is _________________, and I’m calling from The Frisch School. We’re making a fashion show for women only on May 19 called “Who’s the Fairest of Them All?” and we’re focusing on fair food and fair trade practices. Our school has over 500 students and is connected to the local Bergen County community, and an active parent association and alumni network. We’re donating part of the proceeds from the show to the school and part to Not for Sale, an organization that works to end slavery around the world.
We want to know if you’re interested in donating fair trade food products such as kosher coffee or chocolate. We’ll include your store name in emails and print media we create to advertise the event. We’ll also prominently display your store name on the night of the event, on posters and near the food tables.
Orange is Our New Black
Don't think our choice of script color is accidental: Orange is our new black, because orange is the anti-slavery color. That means our Fashion Show T-shirts are, of course, going to be orange. We've set some artistic students the task of coming up with a logo for the fashion show, which we'll then put on a T-shirt we sell for the night. Our models will wear the shirts as well, when they come out for their final turn on the catwalk.
Choosing the Models
On Monday, Shushan Purim, an appropriate day for this, we think, we'll be choosing the models for the show. The way we choose is as follows: we announce to all the girls of the kingdom, sorry, the school (we got carried away with the Shushan Purim thing), that they can submit their names to be chosen for the fashion show. We'll have a box for each grade, and we'll choose 4-8 girls per grade. We'll have to decide, and we'll have to see how many girls submit their names. The selection will take place on Monday afternoon, at Mincha.
The Clothes
Once we have our models, each grade's designers can see what size and shape girls they'll be dressing. The designers will work out the outfits they want for the two styles of clothes they have to create (see the earlier blog post if you forgot: Outline of the Show). Once the designers have their ideas, we'll contact a department store to see if they want to loan us clothes. We'll also raid all of our own closets and perhaps also work with Project Ezrah, an organization that donates and/or sells gently used clothes at reasonable prices to families that are experiencing financial difficulties. Project Ezrah works well with the ethical fashion mission we're on!
Great work, Fashion Team! We're getting so much done!
