Fashionably Successful

San Joaquin Delta College’s fashion program is creating all the right patterns
by Jamie Menaker

To some, fashion is an extension of the personality. To Leslie Asfour, Program Coordinator and full-time instructor at San Joaquin Delta College’s Fashion and Interiors Program, it is a way of life. With the school since 1992, she has seen the Fashion Program grow so much in the time that she’s been there, from the point when she just wished that people could share her vision, to a fashion program so in demand that she can’t find teachers fast enough to satisfy the waiting lists, full of students months before each semester begins. The program is making a name for itself in the fashion world, with a growing laundry list of notable past students. Now, the fashion school has made an impression on our San Joaquin community as well, with its first major fashion event held off campus, a fashion show featuring the collections of eleven up-and-coming student designers, set to the backdrop of Stockton’s Haggin Museum.

“I have watched it grow from this little baby program into this program that we have now,” says Asfour. “It’s been fun.”

What Asfour explains is that originally most students didn’t even know that Delta College offered a fashion program. As the amount of popular television focused around fashion has increased, with shows like Project Runway becoming mainstream entertainment, students previously skeptical are seeing that it can be done, that you can make a career out of fashion. The program has become even more successful as it has become apparent that Delta College fashion students are doing great things, and that people in the fashion world are hearing about it.

The Fashion and Interiors Program offers fashion coursework to satisfy a two year associate’s degree program, as well as two specialized certificate programs, Fashion Merchandising and Apparel Design. Many students that start out taking classes towards a certificate enjoy the program so much that they eventually apply their classes to the full degree of study. So many new classes have been added recently, in fact, that Asfour is in the process of negotiating more certificates to be approved by the college. “A lot of these students want to use their knowledge in a real way,” she says. “Many will try to achieve more than one certificate.”

 Future certificates in consideration include fashion retailing, inspired by a fashion entrepreneur class geared towards students looking to one day open their own label or boutique, and an advanced certificate for the Collection Design class responsible for this past spring’s full-scale fashion show at the Haggin Museum.

The facilities at the school are impressive as well; two large workrooms that can house about thirty-five students each, state of the art industrial sewing machines and specialized machines, and even wide format fabric printers where students can design their own fabrics, a better setup than many state and even private universities.

All this, and for the most part, the community surrounding the college have no idea what is being created in their own backyard.

“We live in a small town that doesn’t really [have much access to] the arts world,” says Asfour. “There’s some change in the air right now, and it feels good, it feels really good.”          

In the past six months alone, the Central Valley has seen the first annual San Joaquin Film Festival, and now the Fashion Program’s inaugural full-scale fashion collections show. Overall, the event, titled “A Story of Fashion,” covered an entire weekend, May 8 to 11. In addition to the Friday evening show displaying the designers’ collections, an exhibit at the college Thursday night presented student work from many of the other classes in the Fashion and Interiors Program, and a Sunday afternoon fashion sale at Stockton’s Wish List Boutique gave the public the opportunity to purchase clothes shown in the Collections Show, and to meet the designers behind the collections—Collections Show winners were also announced at the sale.

“This event really brought in the community,” says Asfour. “Some people had never even been to the Haggin Museum, and had never heard of the Fashion Program. I think for the show at the Haggin, people came from the high schools, from the community … I think it changed the way they look at community college. It’s great for the college, and great for our program.”

Asfour and Collection Design and Production instructor Jonathan Singer look at the show as a jumping point for the museum, as well. They envision gala events someday in the future, similar to those at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and are confident that they could not have picked a better location for the Collections Show. “You can just tell in some of the photos from the event,” says Asfour. “The idea of fashion complementing art and art complementing fashion was just so apparent, with the designers showcasing their collections to the backdrop of the Haggin Museum’s fine art hanging on the walls.”

For a first event, the Fashion Program, the instructors, and the designers should be proud; each of the eleven designers was able to come out with at least a six-piece collection, centered around a chosen theme or design idea. “The best part was that the group was very diverse,” says Asfour. “From Marc Eric [Rodriguez] who was very elegant to Alesha [Pettit], who did this whole rainbow collection.” The designers were told to make their collection understandable to the judges on the runway, but it also had to make sense on a store rack. Asfour says that the winners stood out for how well done and well fit their collections were; they took the time to execute the clothing well, and went the step beyond just great ideas. Marc Eric Rodriguez, who is concurrently enrolled in University of the Pacific and the Delta College Fashion Program, took first; Danielle Romero was awarded second place; and Tarah Sanders was awarded third.

“Marc Eric is such a perfectionist,” says Asfour. “He made these high-waisted pants that were brilliant; they gave the model the best figure and they were so well made. He really thinks about women and what they wear. Danielle is very inspired by Audrey Hepburn, very elegant; I don’t even know if this collection showed to the fullest what great ideas she has. Tarah’s collection was very ready-to-wear. At the Wish List sale the next day, the owners were saying that they could actually sell her clothes in the store, on the racks.”

The students in the Collection Design class weren’t handpicked per say, but they had to finish a grueling set of prerequisites and show their dedication. In essence, they were the students who could survive the class—the entire collection had to be completed in only sixteen classes. Each student had something that made Asfour and Singer believe in their dedication. Two Collection Design students, Emily Cowdrey and Natalie Minori, had previously been chosen to participate in San Francisco Fashion Week, in an up-and-coming designer Little Black Dress competition. Even they were surprised to see how much more work goes into designing a full collection than one piece.

“I don’t know that I would have done anything different for this event,” says Asfour. “We were oversold and a little bit crowded at the Haggin, but that’s not something to be upset about. Every designer was very proud of their collection.”

“Right now the popularity of fashion as a career has grown. This event shows that yes, you can make a career of fashion, yes, you can be successful, and yes, you can be from Stockton.”

For more information about the San Joaquin Delta College Fashion and Interiors Program, call (209) 954-5573, or visit www.deltacollege.edu

**See SIDEBAR – Notable Delta College Fashion Grads