The Cheyenne River Youth Project is preparing for its annual pre-prom Passion For Fashion runway style-show coming up in March. Organizers are requesting donations of new and gently-used formal wear, shoes, accessories and other prom-related supplies.
Passion For Fashion, the Cheyenne River Youth Project's annual runway style show, is gaining popularity among young women on the Cheyenne River Reservation in central South Dakota.
Youth Project Executive Director Julie Garreau says Passion For Fashion is an event where girls from across the reservation get together, often with their moms, aunts, and grandma’s, to get glammed-up and choose what they will wear to prom.
The evening culminates with a runway style show.
“So you have young ladies who are very shy and kind of reserved, and they come in, it takes a while for them to warm up to it, and they start to imagine themselves in those dresses and that sort of thing, and then pretty soon they get dresses and they’re trying on shoes, and they’ve got jewelry and they’re getting their nails done, their hair done, make-up is done. They’re running around just being girls – just having fun being girls and all the while their self-esteem, their self-image is just kind of really building, they’re getting confident and that’s what the runway show is all about because that’s a scary thing,” says Garreau.
Garreau says the Passion For Fashion event is the first time many of these girls will wear formal clothing.
“You know, the young women who would have walked in earlier that afternoon, and the young woman who walks out on that stage, some great transformation has taken place, and they walk out and they’re a little sassy and they’re feeling great, and they see themselves the way they never saw them before,” says Garreau.
Garreau says Passion For Fashion is so much more than just getting glammed-up and going to prom. She says it also teaches young women about confidence-building and anti-bullying and gives them an opportunity to spend time with family and make new friends.
The Cheyenne River Youth Project’s Passion For Fashion Event relies on donations of prom dresses, shoes, accessories, and new cosmetics to help make the event a success.
To help with Passion For Fashion and/or other CRYP programming, link to the Cheyenne River Youth Project at: http://www.lakotayouth.org/
Watch a video of Passion For Fashion 2013 at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MfTi4xOHFg
They Cheyenne River Youth Project is also on Facebook.
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