FIA attends BSO's Fashion Show!

Hey FIA,

How was your weekend? I hope some of you were able to attend KPiB’s show Resonance. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the Resonance Show. Ten other FIA members and I went to Marquette University to support Bayanihan Student Organization (BSO) with their 13th Annual Fall Fashion Show: Lucky 13. Ironic isn’t it that it was on Saturday the 14th, rather than Friday the 13th. Anyways other than me, those who represented FIA were MarkE Ezpeleta (VPE), Mikey Lazaro (Treasurer), Roxanne Del Rosario (Secretary), Corinne Martin (Modern Coord), Becky Ranay, (Athletic Coord), Emil Encarnado (PRO), Jade Narrido (Webmaster), Melissa Gaba (’08-’09 President), Ale Ranay, and Doug Hilo. Everyone else, who didn’t come, missed out on a good time and an awesome show.

We were all supposed to meet at Mikey’s at one-thirty so that we could leave by two. We ended up leaving right on time, well at least Filipno time at about two-twenty. For the eleven people, we drove four cars. Once we arrived in Milwaukee at about four. We were all hungry so we stopped by Sobelman’s, supposedly the best burgers in Milwaukee. Mikey didn’t eat with us and Emil and Becky split a burger. So eight burgers fries and Corinne’s kids meal and our bill totaled $50, which was good considering the size and taste of the burgers. I would have to agree and say that so far, it is the best Milwaukee burger I’ve had, although it was the only one I’ve ever tried.

Off to the fashion show. The BSO Fall Fashion Show was a non-profit event were all the proceeds benefited the Wisconsin Humane Society. Tickets were $8 at the door. A lot of people made it to the show before us. Luckily, BSO was awesome enough to save us a whole row of seats, the second row; the first row was reserved for BSO’s Alumni that came out to support them.

Outside in the lobby were the programs, t-shirt sales and the silent auction. The silent auction consisted of a lot of different things like: 4 tickets to watch a Milwaukee Bucks game, dog shaped cookies, a cheese basket, sadly an autographed football from the Green Bay Packers, and much more. FIA donated three baskets to the silent auction. The first basket was a FIA themed basket. It had five FIA t-shirts in it including a ’09-‘10 membership t-shirt, a ’08-’09 membership t-shirt, an ’09 Battle of the Bamboo t-shirt, a ’08 BOTB t-shirt, and an ’08 Uproot t-shit. It also had a poster from MAFA 2009. The starting bid for that was $15. The second basket was a UIC basket: it had a UIC flames t-shirt, UIC legal pads and paper, a UIC Lanyard, and a UIC thermal lunchbox. The starting bid was $10. The third basket was the College Apartment Survival Kit. This basket had Spam, Vienna Sausage, Corned Beef, Ramen Noodles, Rice, and cups. The starting bid for this was $15.

The winners of the Silent Auction were announced at the end of the show. Corinne and Mikey won the Marquette spirit stuff. I think it included a draw string bag, two Marquette t-shirts, and wristbands. I won the s’mores basket which had Honey Gram Crackers, marshmallows, a Hersey’s Chocolate Bar, Chocolate syrup, candles, and a dog blanket. The FIA Themed basket sold for $20, the UIC themed basket sold for $15, as well as the College Apartment survival kit.

The show started with a prayer and was then led to the show’s MCs who are BSO’s external and internal PRs, Camille Dihiansan and Kara Tamayao, as well as Andrew Pauly. In their opening skit, the MCs called onto stage a randomly chosen “winner” from the audience, which turned out to be Mikey. His prize was to dance on stage for a short amount of time for fame.

What basically happened was that after the MCs introduced a scene, the models would come out, model their clothes, and do a few choreographed dances. They had all different types of segments such as sports wear, career wear, casual wear, cultural, a fall/winter collection, formal wear, casual dance, and modern.

The career wear segment was interesting because there were Marquette faculty dancing and modeling for the crowd. It was at some points awkward to watch. The casual wear had the most memorable music to me. It was Disney themed, started with “I 2 I” from a Goofy Movie, and transitioned into “I’ll make a Man out of You” from Mulan. Their cultural segments were interesting because they didn’t just focus on Filipino culture. They represented African, Latin American, Pacific Islander, Italian, Hmong, Polish, and Capoeira culture as well. BSO’s lone cultural dance performed was Sayaw Sa Bangko. It was a different version than what FIA has done in the past. They stacked onto two stories and ended on a unique 360° turn. BSO’s Modern closed out the show.

I want to congratulate Irish Diwa, Noelle Papilla, and Alana Wauneka (the Fashion Show Coordinators) for putting on an amazing show.

The show was over at about nine-thirty, luckily before the Pacquaio fight was on. Once the fight started half of FIA watched the fight in the back of the auditorium while the other half helped clean. Unfortunately there was no afterset for the Fashion Show, so after Pacquaio’s 12th round victory over Cotto, we loaded our cars and headed back towards Chicago.

Overall it was an entertaining show that did well with a cause. Early indications show that they made over $6000 for the Wisconsin Humane Society. Congrats BSO and thanks for inviting us to your show!

Patrick Millan
President ’09-‘10
Filipinos in Alliance