Fashion Design
Students Win Big

Submitted by Fashion Design and Merchandising

The Fashion Design and Merchandising Department is very pleased to announce that two of our students were scholarship winners in their Alpacafest West Student Design Competition.

Le Dao, a second year Cuesta fashion student; won second place for her design, receiving a $300.00 cash scholarship award. Le also placed first in the Consumer award; winning a beautiful engraved plaque. Kara Duffy; who is a Cuesta transfer design student from Boston, placed third in the competition. She was awarded a $200 cash scholarship. Both students received beautiful ribbons for their achievements as well.

Held on Saturday, October 31 at the beautiful Firestone Winery in Santa Ynez, seven entries from Cuesta College were judged by Ms. Diane Steele; an experienced designer of Alpaca fabrics.

Our students had a deadline of October 15 to submit their display boards. The criteria was to show a full color fashion sketch, in a head to toe design using Alpaca fiber as their main fabric source. They had to also submit an essay that explained the benefits of Alpaca fiber; showing that they had researched and understood the correct application of Alpaca in their original designs. The boards also displayed a “theme” for each design; and the colors and swatches were arranged in a professional manner.

During the afternoon fashion show Susan Boos, chairperson of the Southern California (SoCalpaca) design competition, announced the students who had submitted winning boards.

Rhonda McBride, Instructor of Commercial Fashion Design, and 20th Century Trends in Fashion, was pleased to present while her students accepted their awards. It was an exciting day for us, and very rewarding to see some of our students win!

We are invited to enter the next competition; which is on a national level. Stay tuned for those results!