By Bella Omar
Asst. Arts & Features Editor
This past February, Jazmany Reyes, former FSU fashion student, got on a bus to Manhattan to begin his internship with fashion brand Mueret Tolegen and create his debut runway collection, titled “Passion.”
With help from Parsons School of Design student Kyla Geyer, Reyes put together a stunning 10-piece collection of wearable, feminine pieces - shown at the Coco Cabana.
The collection was inspired by Reyes’ hometown’s struggle with gentrification in Chelsea.
“I want there to be a way to kind of preserve the history and the people there, because we have such a big Latino population in Chelsea, Massachusetts - it's only two square miles long and there's about forty to fifty thousand Latinos that live there.
“I want to make this next collection actually about gentrification because I come from Chelsea, Massachusetts. And Chelsea, Massachusetts has been kind of falling victim to that. In the past maybe five years, five to 10 years, it's been transformed a lot,” he said.
With such short notice Reyes “made about 10 samples in 10 days or less” and sent them off to Geyer, he said.
“I would go for my internship at 10 a.m. I would be up at 7 a.m. because I lived in Jersey City. … And then I would go to my internship from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. And then from 5 p.m. to midnight, I would go to the Parsons School of Design, and I'd go to this sewing studio over there and just work and just work on designs,” he said.
Everything featured in “Passion,” from pleated skirts to structured tops, was carefully crafted, he said.
“Everything is handmade. Everything is hand draped. Everything is done by me. Currently, I'm doing everything by myself. So whatever you see online and all the designs, everything is done by me completely by hand, and I take a lot of pride in that because I know a lot of the design world right now is going to a manufacturer,” he said.
Prior to his career at Framingham State, Reyes has always explored the arts through creation, he said. He added he “started in high school. I kind of just was self teaching myself everything. I was doing little sewing projects for myself here, and they kind of just started with making little bags and little tote bags and stuff like that. And then everyone was kind of just like sewing masks and I was sewing masks for a while,” he said.
He studied fashion merchandising at Framingham State to enter the industry in a practical way, he said.
“I was going to do visual advertising or fashion merchandise or fashion advertising. And then I kind of stuck with that up until junior year, until I went to Italy. And after I went to Italy and I did my intensive fashion design course over there, I fell in love with design,” he said.
The classes he took at Framingham State gave Reyes skills that he has carried into his recent pursuits - classes including “principles of apparel construction. I would also say almost all of my fashion merchandising classes - they all helped me. I will say that omni channel helped me a lot with Professor Ruirui Zhang. Also, merchandising and retail buying with Dr. Hae Won,” he said.
In anticipation of the spring summer 2024 season, Reyes is working on my new collection and right now I am so excited!” he said.