By Diane Hogenkamp

Walking into The Shak by Stanley Korshak is like entering every college fashionista’s dream closet. With all those young, fresh brands like Vince, Rag & Bone and Alice + Olivia, any woman could easily spend a whole day flipping through racks of clothing and having a personal fashion show in the fitting room.

Thanks to Southern Methodist University’s Retail Club, that fashion show doesn’t need to be contained in The Shak’s fitting rooms. Retail Club is having its annual spring fashion show Friday, April 22, which will feature looks from The Shak and Luxury Garage Sale. They’re busting out of the fitting rooms and heading to SMU’s Dallas Hall lawn.

“We partnered with Stanley Korshak last year and loved working with them,” said India Pougher, the Retail Club fashion show coordinator. “And LGS is a new-ish store in Snider Plaza, so it’s really exciting to be featuring them.”

There are 10 models and they each get to model two different looks – one from The Shak and one from Luxury Garage Sale. One model wanted to get the best of both worlds by choosing both a formal outfit and a casual outfit.

“From LGS I’m wearing a navy blue dress embroidered with an orange, pink, magenta and gold floral design,” said Amanda Silvera, a Retail Club member and fashion show model. “From The Shak I’m wearing a relaxed, loose black top with lace–up shoulders tucked into a pair of matte snake print shorts with an elastic waistband.”

Pougher assembled clothing on a rack at Luxury Garage Sale from which models got to choose what they liked best and what fit well. At The Shak however, Retail Club Co-President Chandler Helms gave the models free reign to choose any clothing pieces in the store.

“We had the freedom to roam the store and pick whatever we liked, then Chandler gave us styling tips and was really supportive,” Silvera said.

While the clothing is all picked from LGS and The Shak, models are responsible for providing their own shoes and accessories to complete their looks. Gucci Beauty will be doing makeup for the models before the show. And as for hair?

“I will be doing everyone’s hair,” Helms said. “We haven’t found a consistent salon to work with for hair, so I get that job this year.”

With this year being the 15th anniversary of Retail Club, Pougher wanted to make sure this year’s fashion show was one worth celebrating. Throughout the years, the organization has partnered with many different Dallas–area stores and the show has been held in several different locations.

“I think I’m most excited about the location,” Pougher said. “It will be right in front of Dallas Hall so it’s a really beautiful backdrop, and I think that’s going to add a bit of drama.”

The models are just as thrilled to be showing off their looks in front of Dallas Hall.

“I’ve modeled in every fall and spring fashion show since my freshman year,” Silvera said. “I’m excited to be back in front of Dallas Hall where we did a show three years ago. It was super fun to be in that central area of campus and to have students walking around and stopping by to watch.”

Helms explained how the models will walk down the Dallas Hall steps and through the aisle between audience chairs with each of their two looks.

“The whole walk takes about a minute per model, so this will probably be our longest show, compared to others in the past, which were only about eight minutes long,” Helms said.

Pougher got the idea for this more dramatic runway path from current runway trends.

“A lot of designers are doing more exotic runways as opposed to just the straight runway, so our coordinator, India, wanted to follow that trend,” Helms said.

In addition to the fashion show, the SMU Fashion Media program brought in Hillary Kerr, co-founder of Who What Wear, and Kate Betts, former editor of Harper’s Bazaar, to speak with students as part of SMU’s fifth annual Fashion Week. The fashion show will cap off the week. In Pougher’s opinion, it’s worth it to enjoy SMU Fashion Week until the very last minute.

“We’re giving away a $200 Stanley Korshak gift card in a raffle at the end of the show so everyone should stay for that,” Pougher said.