ufashion a History and Thoughts

I am so proud of ufashion (University of Toronto Fashion Group) right now. ufashion is a fashion group I first thought of in fall of 2005 and officially launched in Fall of 2006. I founded the group with my two very good friends Kelvin Li and Shams Shaikh who are still involved with the group and Stan Trac who was my major fashion contact and gave me the interest in fashion.

I am impressed, proud, scared, and a little sad. Impressed ufashion is alive and thriving. There's little chance it will die having survived a year under new leadership. And where once was nothing, now there's a fashion group for the urbanite students at Canada's largest and greatest University. I am proud to have been the one to create this value to the student body. I still remember taking out members with Glenn by TTC to Toronto Fashion Week at Liberty Grand.

I am proud the current president, Inja Kim, with the old and new officers have upped the standard of ufashion's Flagship Event: UofT Next Top Model. Now with corporate sponsors, higher prices, more contestants, designer contributions, larger expected audience, and a wicked new venue, it's looking better than ever. (I still remember the call right after the first Top Model event last year. I was in the hotel room of Emory University in Atlanta because I was there for the Undergraduate Business School Leadership Conference with Richard and Gena. My officers were a little unhappy with me that I wasn't going to be at the show, but if the success of that show was any indication, I had put together a group that could deliver without me. There were screams and cheers of a successful event when I called. Sold out venue. High energy. Expectations were met and exceeded. Feelings of achievement and success filled everyone that had been a part of the event. One article captures the feeling. At the next meeting, everyone was talking about next year and how we would make it even better by having one model from each of the 14 UofT colleges compete for the top honor. We had a reputation.

I am scared. I've always had to fight for things in ufashion. I even had to fight to make the "u" in ufashion uncapitalized. Now some people are writing it uFashion which is ok. At least no one is writing Ufashion or UFashion which I absolutely dislike for aesthetic reasons. I guess I feel scared that I have no control of the group. I see names of officers now this year that are listed as contacts that I have never heard of. Once ufashion was completely mine and now it's up for other people and people I have never even met to decide. I am just a little sad how insignificant I have become. Next year people won't even know who I am. I should have created a Board of Directors before I left. Well. Next time...

Time to move on. New challenges awaits.

But before I leave. ufashion still has a lot of room to grow. For one, it's online presence has suffered. No one is blogging, updating the site, and even the facebook group is not well updated. Sure we have a 450+ mailing list, but what about the people that aren't on it? We need to improve that with a web person. Also the product line has not been up to standard. ufashion is not all about consuming fashion. It's also about creating fashion, and I haven't hear anything about it's product line. I look forward to the President's Annual Letter to the Members. Last year's is here.


A few pics to keep it interesting....

After "Dinner of Fashion"


At Threads Fashion Show.


At UofT Next Top Model 2007