Angelica Miller, a third-year at Northeastern University, is the president of Northeastern’s Fashion Society. The Fashion Society (TFS) is a student organization at Northeastern University that brings together students with a shared interest in fashion, providing a space to connect with like minded individuals. TFS is “Northeastern’s destination for anything fashion,” says Miller.
(Headshot of Angelica Miller; photo taken by Paige Lieberman)
Miller was previously the styling lead for the Spring Fashion Show, “The Deadliest Sins” as a first-year in 2023. Last year was her first year on the executive board as the communications director, where she monitored the Instagram by answering questions via the DM’s, posted graphics, made weekly newsletters and did communications outreach from time-to-time.
Now, Miller is the president, where she oversees the executive board of 15 people. As president, she oversees all club operations, manages the executive board, makes sure all deadlines are met and all content is posted on time. She conducts weekly executive meetings, delegates tasks to team members and creates an overall public impression of the club. She decides the creative direction of the club by giving inspiration for graphics and instructing the marketing team. To get a feel for what TFS is all about and hear more about the events they put on, I sat down with Miller to gather some insight.
(TFS Executive Board; photo taken by Paige Leiberman)
Q: What is an event you’re proud of from this semester?
A: I’m most proud of this semester’s flea market, where I worked alongside Ada Chen, my Vice President. This plan stemmed in the beginning of the semester, where I had the idea to bring a flea market to Northeastern’s campus. I originally wanted to team up with an existing flea market, such as Select Markets and Found Markets, but Northeastern has strict guidelines, so I was undecided on how to approach this. Ada really wanted to do the flea market and pushed me to schedule this where we would have vendors on campus, but it was all run by us.
We posted applications for student vendors and received a lot of interest from students who vend at flea markets frequently and others who were interested in selling their clothes. We then booked Krentzman Quad for October 29 for this event and looking back, I’m very happy with how it turned out, as we were able to interact and grab the attention of students leaving classes. I didn’t expect us to get the attention we got and I had so many people come up to me asking what we do. We also had an article written by the Huntington News who interviewed the vendors, and overall, I’m really happy about the awareness TFS gained around this event.
(TFS Flea Market on Northeastern’s Campus; photo taken by Lauren Witt)
Q:What is your goal as president for this academic year?
A: Going into my role as president, I really wanted to help form a community within The Fashion Society, as I’ve heard that many in the past thought we were pretty intimidating. We want people to come to our meetings and get involved, and the idea of the club can be intimidating, as people believe they need to have a lot of information about fashion and need to have good style in order to join. We don’t want this stigma and want people to be comfortable, as there is not one set definition of fashion. Fashion can be anything and it should not be constrained. So, my goal has been to make the club more representative and seen as an inclusive and welcoming space, while creating a close-knit community where our members can make friends and want to come to our meetings.
I’ve also shifted the meetings to weekly instead of biweekly to make it more of a community and allow us to all get together. We do a mix of meetings, from educational to interactive. Recently, we’ve done educational meetings, such as a Paris Fashion Dialogue Informational Session, alongside a co-op Panel of students who have worked with Hermes, New Balance, Elle, Prada and NFP. Our interactive meetings have included a Sewing Workshop with NU Sews and Depop and a Fashion Week Unfiltered meeting. We also ask for feedback during meetings about ideas for future meetings to find out what our members want to see.
We’ve also started doing community outings, which are a fun way for members to get to know one another. The first community outing this semester was called the Snap and Seek event, which was a photoshoot challenge. We teamed up photographers with a couple models and they were given a random location to compose a couple photos. To make our Instagram more interactive, we posted all the photos on our Instagram stories and had our members vote which photo was their favorite, and then the winning team was posted.
Another goal of mine has been to humanize the Instagram page to showcase the faces behind The Fashion Society. The marketing team, for example, does interviews with members that are featured on our Instagram; showing their friendly faces has been amazing! We’ve also done “fit checks” and OOTD’S to showcase our members!
Lastly, one of my goals of creating a better community within The Fashion Society was hosting a Gala, which brought all of our members together for one night where they could dress-up, listen to music by a student DJ, enjoy free food and partake in photo opportunities. This went towards my goal of creating a community to bring our members together before the semester ended.
Q: Can you touch upon this spring’s upcoming Fashion Show?
A: We have an annual Spring Fashion Show and it is entirely student-run. The team structure is around 40 stylists, 40 models and 10-20 people doing hair and makeup. We also have an events team, which involves production, set design and decoration, and the marketing team, which involves the photographers and videographers. We also usually have student acts for intermission; last year, we had a student DJ and a student dancer.
(“Deadliest Sins” Fashion Show; photo taken by Faith Nguyen)
Last year was also the first time we held the Fashion Show off-campus, as it was at Royale. We are currently looking for venues off-campus for our Spring Fashion Show, which will be held between the end of March and beginning of April, as it takes an entire semester to plan and execute. We have a new theme each year and there’s four sections, where each stylist is paired to a model and curates two looks for their model, meaning, in total, there are 80 looks for the fashion show.
Q: What was last year’s theme for the Fashion Show and what was your role?
A: Last year’s theme was “Artistry in Motion.” The four sections were “Surreal Surrender,” “Cubist Couture,” “Impressionist Inspiration” and “Avante Tech Affair.” This theme was an homage to the ever-evolving nature of fashion and we sold 500 tickets, but around 600 people came to the venue.
(“Deadliest Sins” Fashion Show; photo taken by Faith Nguyen)
I was the female styling lead two years ago, where I was in charge of all 40 stylists, while I also had to style my own model. Last year, I also styled a model for fun for the ”Impressionist Inspiration” and “Surreal Surrender” sections.
(“Deadliest Sins” Fashion Show; photo taken by Faith Nguyen)
Q: What will be the theme for this year’s Spring Fashion Show?
A: This year’s theme for the fashion show will be “Metamorphosis.” The four sections are going to embody the stages of metamorphosis and symbolize growth through humans, where growth happens in stages. It represents the life stages of the butterfly but also how humans can go through stages, similarly.
The fashion show is my favorite part of TFS and I’m very excited for the upcoming show!