By Elinor Frisa

Nathalie Santis and Helena Dauverd took on an unexpected extracurricular project this past academic year: The VCU Enterprise Marketing and Communications social media team asked the two School of the Arts students to help produce a series of Instagram reels in which they styled looks for different majors.

Santis, a fashion major with a concentration in merchandising who graduated in May, and Dauverd, now a rising sophomore, who transferred to VCU and is majoring in fashion with a concentration in design, teamed up to create concepts, go thrifting at local shops and recruit models.

Deidra Arrington, chair of the Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising recommended the pair, who knew each other from Studio 352, the VCUarts fashion club. Santis was managing the VCUarts Fashion social accounts, and Dauverd, had previous styling experience and was doing some styling and writing for VCU’s Ink Magazine.

Their collaboration resulted in two collections of outfits: one for arts majors (including, yes, fashion) and one for STEM majors, such as computer science and engineering.

“Despite their busy schedules, Nathalie and Helena were so professional and easy to work with throughout the entire process,” said Loan Nguyen, an EMC social media coordinator. “The project involved so many moving parts that viewers don’t see. Each video involved many weeks of student-led pre-production efforts, including creating inspiration boards, finding models, sourcing secondhand clothing and props, fitting the models, and adjusting and finalizing the outfits.”  

Here, Santis and Dauverd reflect on the experience and share their fashion philosophies. 

What led to your interest in fashion?

Santis: I feel like I’ve always been interested in it. It’s always been a hobby, just dressing up. I was a marketing major first because I didn’t know you could pursue a fashion degree. And so once I found out about that, I was like, “That’s so cool. I want to do that.” And I love the department as a whole. Everyone in it is just so creative and everyone’s themselves, and I feel like we really all connect.

Dauverd: I guess my initial interest in fashion started with my mom and my grandmother. They’re both very stylish people, and it was always really interesting growing up to see the way that they dressed and presented themselves. And a good chunk of my family is from France, so I had the experience of going there and seeing fashion in a different cultural setting. That made me realize that it’s a more integral part in different parts of the world and that it has different ways of expressing itself – and that there’s a really big world of design and merchandising, and then textiles and sustainability. 

Of the majors you styled, which was your favorite?

Dauverd: I thought the health sciences and engineering were our best looks. We had this really specific inspiration for the health sciences one. I think it was the Raf Simons spring-summer 2022 runway look, and they’re in not quite lab coats but really close. Natalie did a great job of pulling that look together, and she got actual dishwashing gloves for that. So I thought that was really cool. And then I did engineering, and I wanted to embody 1980s Italian mechanics, which is oddly specific, but I normally run with vintage silhouettes and vintage inspiration, and then I just make it modern.

Santis: Those were my favorite looks, too. And we had pictures of them together as well because they just looked so good next to each other. And I think also that one was a bit of a risk, I would say, because we went a little more like high fashion with it. So, we weren’t sure if people were going to love it as much as we loved it, but I think it turned out amazing.

Which was the most challenging major?

Santis: Fashion! I think it was hard just because obviously we’re fashion majors and so it was like: Do I put her in something that I would wear, or is that too close to my personal style? Because I wanted to kind of separate it. And then obviously we know so many people within the fashion department, and everyone is just so different.

Dauverd: I think for me it might have been crafts and material studies. There are five different areas within crafts, and [there is] the way that different people dress – not only because of their personal style, but then also because of what you need to be wearing to be safe and maybe you have to wear fire-protective or fire-resistant clothing or you want to wear something that’s a little bit more extravagant.

Were you able to use what you’ve learned in the classroom during the styling sessions?

Dauverd: Just being in Art Foundations classes and learning principles of design, I think there is something [from that], like knowing I have an eye for things.

Santis: My classes have helped me with this project — what [Helena] said about design principles and alignment and everything. And I feel like we’ve been trained to have that eye for things, so that has been beneficial.

And what did you learn from the project?

Santis: I feel like I learned a lot from working with Helena, honestly, because she does have that styling experience and, kind of, I just went into it from the social media side of it. And so for me, it was really beneficial to see how she works, what her process is, and then learn from that.

Dauverd: That’s so nice!

Did anything surprise you?

Dauverd: I wasn’t expecting the models for the second shoot to be so into it, because they weren’t art students. I think one was a Ph.D. student, and then the other student was going into biology. But they loved to model, they loved fashion, they thought everything looked really cool, and they were really excited about the more experimental outfits that we were doing. I think that’s what makes the best photo shoots and the best outfits is when the models really love their outfits. The clothes are really important, but the person that they’re on is more important.

What advice do you have for the VCU community when it comes to what to wear?

Dauverd: Research what interests you in fashion. And maybe that’s looking at Pinterest and finding inspiration that speaks to you. Or maybe that means going into a store and trying on something you would never wear, trying on new shapes, new silhouettes, new items. And understanding what textures you like, how you want to feel in your clothing. I think, just research and be intentional with it. And if your intention is to wear all shapeless black, go for it. If that’s what makes you happy, then I love it for you. I think it is so important to just wear what makes you happy.

Santis: I would say just don’t be scared to try something new. I’ve come up with the weirdest outfits from putting on random pieces that I wouldn’t ever think of putting together, and it just ends up working somehow. And if I’m wearing something that I like and I feel confident in, it makes my day so much better. It kind of changes your perspective. And I also just love that VCU in general is such a great place to kind of do that because nobody really judges you. People be wearing some weird things! So, don’t be scared to wear whatever you want and feel confident in it, because at the end of the day, it doesn’t even matter what people think about you. It’s how you feel and what you think of yourself. And it’s such a safe space here to just be who you are.