Annual International Fashion Show will be livestreamed this year

For almost two decades, the University of Louisville International Fashion Show has been one of the most popular student-led campus events. The clothing, dance numbers and camaraderie are a winning recipe for a night that shines a celebratory spotlight on the students from all over the world who study here.

This year, the 19th Annual International Fashion Show takes place Jan. 29. Because of social distancing guidelines due to Covid-19, the show will go on without an in-person audience, instead being live streamed on WHAS11.com and on UofL’s YouTube channel. The only people in attendance will be organizers and participants.

“The show will occur just with the group of models and performers who signed up. It will be filmed in the Ballroom at the Student Activities Center and we will be using all of the space available to us in the SAC to social distance. Masks will be worn at all times as well,” said Lilah Kahloon, a junior psychology major who is chair of the Student Activities Board Diversity Committee, which organizes the event.

The show will be separated into six regions: North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East.

"We have students from various cultural RSOs such as Black Student Union, African Student Union and Vietnamese Student Association to name a few,” Kahloon said.

The theme, “Revolution: It’s Not Over,” will be incorporated into every part of the show, Kahloon said, adding it emerged from a feeling that “we could not put on the show without addressing the state of the world we have been living in.”

“It seems like the demand for global change is stronger now than ever. Watching the ongoing protests for Breonna Taylor and the Black Lives Matter movement as a whole, we wanted to address the ideas of revolutions and how students, like those at UofL, can often be seen at their forefront,” she said.

The show’s poster features an image of hands holding up the Earth, a powerful symbol meant to convey that people have the power to change the world they live in, Kahloon said.

Kahloon said there will be about 65 models in the show and eight dance performances.

Because anyone around the world can watch this year’s show, UofL students have the opportunity to demonstrate to an unlimited audience “the joy they have for celebrating their culture with others,” Dean of Students Michael Mardis told WHAS11 in an interview here.

The show begins airing at 7 p.m. Jan. 29.