A fashion show in progress at St Mary’s School. Picture by Uma Shankar Dubey

Jamshedpur, June 25: From sporting trendy garments to sashaying down the ramp in costumes of ancient periods or fictional characters, inter-school fashion shows have come a long way.

The credit for this positive transition from the former trivial ramp shows to the present theme shows would go to city schools that have made a conscious effort to suit the fad to educational needs. ADLS Sunshine School, which organised an inter-school fashion show and workshop last year on different periods in history, is also planning a show on Parsee culture and customs.

Slated for the first week of July, the show would also have a ramp walk where students would portray famous Parsee personalities.

“This show will be a tribute to the Tatas for their contribution to the city. We also included the ramp walk in the show since it attracts younger kids. I feel the fashion show is a fad of the younger generation but of late schools have modified it to suit educational needs,” said Shobha Madan, principal of ADLS. “It would be unfair to brand fashion shows as not in sync with our educational system and discourage such events. We need to move with the times and instead make them educational,” Madan said.

“Fashion shows have become highly aesthetic of late. The response from our last inter-school fashion show was overwhelming and students not only got to learn about the dresses and culture of different dynasties but also did extensive research work on their lifestyle and food habits,” she added.

Theme fashion shows have become the buzzword at most inter-school cultural festivals held recently. Be it the Autumn Fest, Wheels or Interactions, topics like civilisations of the world, changing cultures, Europe through the ages, dressing trends of different nations across the globe have stimulated the creativity of student participants.

Kerala Public School, Kadma, which conducted an inter-school fashion show on khadi wear, also received an overwhelming response. “It was amazing to see students come up with ideas like wedding dresses in khadi where everything from the bride’s purse to the groom’s turban was made of khadi. That apart, students sported western casual dresses like cargo pants, tank tops and mini skirts made of khadi,” said Mitali Mascharak, a senior teacher of Loyola School.

“Though I feel the theme fashion shows are a positive trend, there is still scope for improvement. The organisers could focus more on social awareness topics like AIDS, smoking, environment, globalisation,” she added. The Library Club of Loyola School plans to conduct an inter-school fashion show with the theme of fictional characters from books for high school students and comic characters for their juniors.