Photo | Judy Wang and Katie Ma
Description of our Organisation
The Victoria College Environmental Fashion Show is a collective for students who see fashion as a medium for change in the world. Our 2024 Fashion Shows features the work of over 200 UofT students in a two-day weekend event. Come see “Deliria” on March 30 and 31. Grab your tickets in our Instagram bio @vefs_ before they’re gone!
Deliria is surrealism—an ode to a fantastical land where fashion knows no bounds. It is expression, creativity, and joy; a harkening to the very essence of what makes one fall in love with fashion in the first place.
For some, this looks like “an ethereal celebration of femininity” (Isa Crumpton) and approaching “the female body as its own work of art” (Kaiden Beskers), while for others, deliria represents a darker “mental jumble and buzzed excitement” (Marie Kinderman) and “feelings of cyclical and obsessive thinking” (Carmen Sofia Vega).
In any case, deliria is rife with possibility, radiating imagination, and exuding artistry. Deliria also brings forth the importance of sustainable fashion. Are we so delirious in our endless consumption and dizzying trend cycles that we have failed to face the reality of the environmental impact of the fashion industry?
In keeping with the values of sustainability, VEFS designers utilise only pre-loved materials for their collections. This serves as a constant reminder of the excess and waste that has become synonymous with fashion. Their works are in tune with the tragedy of non-sustainable fashion, confronting it head-on with pieces celebrating the “unpredictable beauty of the natural world…transforming the body into a living canvas for mother earth’s design” (Aasfi Sadeque). The designers wholeheartedly welcome the challenge of creating an “irrational design with a rational use of materials” (Sana McDowell). With intentional choices of materials “as a visual metaphor for the overwhelming impact of humanity’s consumerist ideals”
(Emmalyn Tsang), VEFS designers find beauty in refuse.
Ruminating on the past, through the use of second-hand materials, while welcoming a better future with innovative design is important to VEFS, as collections are dreamed up to reminisce “leaning into the childlike delight of looking through your grandma’s closet” (Meg Butcher) and akin to “a sense of comfort akin to being enveloped into a warm embrace” (Helen Yoon). The designers use this opportunity to reflect on their childhood and their relationship with fashion. In doing this, they free themselves from an endless trend cycle to reinvent lost passions and true aesthetics as “ perception and reality waltz to the tune of sweet nostalgia” (Victoria Lee).
In the end, deliria is a celebration of boundless talent, from designers to models, photographers, hair and makeup artists, set designers, and more to curate three days of beauty and art, driven by the desire to “feel safe and loved by the world at this very moment in time, one of true deliria” (Marie Kinderman).
Design | Jessica Chu
Photo | Kurtis Law and Soda Wang
