Helping out Haiti in Fashion Design

Lejla Mustabasic 

Wethersfield High School has many creative and fun electives to choose from, one of them being fashion design. This class is a good opportunity for anyone that loves to design and create their own clothing by hand. One of the many things you learn in this class is sewing, which is good for anyone who’s into fashion and creating their own clothing, or just a basic necessity to know for everyday life.
Last year in class, Ms. Leuschner set up a project for all of her students to do. After teaching them how to sew, she made it her mission to get her students to create 100 little handmade dresses and drawstring bags. These dresses and bags were sent to Haiti to all the children and women in need of clothes and bags to carry around their belongings. She organized everyone into stations.
Leuschner put students in charge of each dress size, where each of the students in their stations were all responsible for their own job. For example, one would be in charge for cutting out the fabric, the next person sewed it, and the next person made sure everything was correctly done. The same thing was done for the bags. Not only did the students help people in need who don’t have the same resources we have, but they increased their sewing skills and worked together to problem solve, especially if there were any complications along the way or something was done wrong. There’s nothing bad about doing something wrong in fashion design. It’s okay because that’s what the class is there for, to learn.
Currently, the students are creating their own pajama pants which Ms. Leuschner has been doing for years. I’ve witnessed kids get very frustrated during the process of this because it takes very long to do and you have to follow everything correctly step by step, or else it won’t come out right. In the end, you get a nice cozy pair of pajama pants without having to go out and spend your own money.

The students are also working on making their own lanyards and eventually selling them to other students around the school. I think this is a great way to show others how fun and creative the class is, as well as giving out pretty lanyards to the students.