The African Student Organization hosted its ninth annual fashion show Friday night. Around 1,000 students attended this event. The theme for this year was a wedding, and the couple that was celebrated was wife and husband, Dionna Dorsey and Ikechi Dike.

The fashion show consisted of seven scenes and four featured performances including rappers Ennzo and Stormaxxi, singer Nubia G, the Southern Connecticut State University dance team “Encore”, SCSU “African Student Association” dance team, and Alpha Phi Alphas. Audience interaction was encouraged with a “Best Dressed” competition and dancing segments where audience members were picked at random to go on stage with the host, Clifford Owusu.

Deejkwane, the D.J. of the night, set the mood playing Afrobeats and dancehall, as well as other genres.

Ennzo explained why he chose his song “Impossible” to perform.

“The song is called Impossible and it’s a song about motivation,” Ennzo said. “Nothing that you’re doing is impossible.”

The designer for the female scene was “EzClothin.” The designer for the male scene was the “Drew Coffie Collection,” and the designer for the swimsuit scene was “Aude.”

“Aklebulan Prints” designed the outfits for the Modern Wedding scene, and “No.Kyne” was the designer for the flag scene.

Andrew Coffie, the designer for “Drew Coffie Collection” said that when he knew the theme was a wedding he had to bring his best foot forward.

“For this show the theme was a wedding…With suits, there’s elegance to it, there’s class. I am bringing my A-game into this.” Coffie said.

One audience member said that she wants the show to happen more often.

“Make this every semester. Not every other semester. Every single one,” Laila Cotton said.

David Nduati said that he goes to support his friends and appreciate his culture.

“All the models are all my friends and I like going out to support them,” Nduati said. “Since I can’t make the ASO meetings during the week, this is the one time I get to go show my support, and appreciate my culture.”

Wadline Emmanuel, a model for the fashion show, said she had fun creating content for ASO’s Instagram account, “@ccsu_aso”.

“Creating Tiktoks and content for ASO was really fun,” Wadline Emmanuel said.

Benjamin Koranteng, a model for the fashion show, said he learned to open up more.

“From this experience, I learned to open up more,” Koranteng said. “When I first came I was closed off and quiet.”

Koranteng said his advice to potential models is to have fun with this experience.

“Go out there, have fun, you only live once, and the show is only once a year,” Koranteng said.

Shani Jackson, the ASO President, said she was happy about the turnout this year. She said Donesha Noble did a great job promoting the show on their media platform and reaching out to sister schools such as the University of Connecticut, Southern Connecticut State University, and the University of New Haven.

“The turnout was amazing and from my experience from going to these shows, I think that was one of the best turnouts we’ve ever had for the show,” she said. “That is solely because of our public relations officer, Donesha.”

Jackson said her most important takeaway is collaboration.

“My most important takeaway is working together as a team. You have so many people, with so many different ideas, and coming together to solidify one thought was a little difficult,” she said. “Leading the team on my part was one of the most challenging things. I think I executed it very well, but at the end of the day, I think I had great people behind me. With my E-Board to help with managing our models, our designers, and going through those motions.”

Albert Guwoe said next year’s models should walk the stage with confidence.

“Walk the stage with confidence. While you’re up there, you don’t get much time on the scene,” he said. “It’s important to make sure that the time that you’re up there, whoever’s in the audience remembers your face.”

At the end of the event, ASO’s E-Board walked the runway, and Jackson was given a gift as appreciation for her efforts and commitment to ASO.