The Bayanihan Student Organization will bring the audience to the wild acts of the circus during its 19th annual fashion show this Saturday, Nov. 21. Themed “Cirque du Bayanihan,” the group is collaborating with the Indian Student Organization, the African Students Association, Japanese Club, the Gold ‘n Blues and Hype Dance Company to put on a show that will amaze the audience for Marquette’s largest nonprofit fundraising event of the year. Their goal is to raise over $6,000 this year.
The show will be held at 7 p.m. in the Alumni Memorial Union Grand Ballrooms. Besides the event being a fashion show with modeling, there will also be dancing and singing as well as a silent auction. All of the proceeds from the fashion show this year will go to the nonprofit organization, Best Buddies of Wisconsin.
“The reason why we chose Best Buddies in the first place was because Best Buddies is an organization that takes people with intellectual disabilities and includes them in society,” said Kiko Ramos, fashion show coordinator and sophomore in the College of Engineering. I feel like that’s what Bayanihan does with this fashion show, with all these different diversity clubs coming together.”
Best Buddies creates one-to-one friendships by pairing people with intellectual and developmental disabilities with others who can help them advance their leadership and social skills. In 2011, Best Buddies created the 2020 initiative. The goal is to open offices in all 50 states, expanding into 100 different countries and impacting 3 million with and without disabilities by the end of 2020.
There are six main companies donating clothing to the fashion show, including PINK, Aeropostale, New Balance and ReThreads. The Marquette Spirit Shop will also be featured.
“We draw attention to big companies but we also want to show off local stores,” said A.J. Giron, fashion show coordinator and sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Although the club mainly focuses on promoting, educating and celebrating Filipino culture, they are promoting other cultures as well through the African, Indian, Japanese, Indonesian and Malaysian outfits that will be shown.
Ramos said that he is most excited to see the show all put together, especially because they’ve been working on it since the summer.The BSO had a table at O-Fest in the beginning of the academic school year for signing up for the club as well as the fashion show.
“Personally, I really like the sportswear and the casual wear because we have a lot of great stores from that,” said Samantha Dayon, fashion show coordinator and sophomore in the College of Business Administration. “PINK and New Balance… those are the types of clothes that a lot of Marquette students wear.”
Like Ramos, Giron is also looking forward to the whole show coming together.
“The culture segment is our closing and (the students involved) worked so hard. I love all (the students); they do so well.” Giron said. “I love watching them walk the runway. It’s about the whole, not the individual pieces.”
Dayon said that they will open the show with an all-women segment.
“We (are using) the Britney Spears ‘Circus’ music to kind of play off of that theatrical portion of the show,” Dayon said.
Sydney Valero, the BSO Vice President and senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said that the group is bringing out Marquette’s slogan, “Be the Difference,” and that they try to work that slogan in every day with their club. Giron echoed this goal.
“We use this as our largest recruiting tool. We want the club to get bigger, we want interest to come in. We want to put on a great show and put smiles on people’s faces,” Giron said.
