Students and community members participated Sunday in the High Heel Marathon, which was hosted by the Student Apparel Design Association. The marathon was an event to kick off SADA’s 2010 Fashion Week.
Leopard print stilettos, hot pink kitten heels, black lace-up wedges and all other varieties of high heels clattered down M.A.C. Avenue on Sunday in a race to the finish.
The Student Apparel Design Association, or SADA, hosted a High Heel Marathon at noon on Sunday.
Participants ran from the corner of M.A.C. Avenue and Elizabeth Street and finished at the corner of Beech Street.
Meredith Gruszka, an apparel and textile design senior and president of SADA, said she got the idea from the High Heel-A-Thon hosted by ABC’s “Live with Regis and Kelly” in New York City in 2008.
“I thought this would be a cute idea for our organization,” she said. “It’s a fun way to get the community involved, and it’s a fun social event for our group.”
The event also was the beginning of SADA’s 2010 Fashion Week, which includes a fashion show at American Apparel, 115 E. Grand River Ave., and events at Club Rush, 131 Albert Ave., the rock on Farm Lane and Swirlberry, 228 Abbot Road.
The week will end in a fashion show at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Lansing Center, 333 E. Michigan Ave., in Lansing. All 43 designers whose work will be featured in the show participated in Sunday’s marathon.
“There’s beautiful weather and it’s fashion related,” said Kaylei McGaw, an apparel and textile design senior whose work will be modeled in Saturday’s show.
“It’s a nice time to relax and have fun and be silly, sprinting down the road in some heels.”
The marathon also helped to raise money for The Path of Pink, a local organization that promotes breast cancer awareness and designs clothes to hide breast forms and scarring from breast cancer-related surgeries.
“It’s important to be aware of breast cancer,” said Elizabeth Vanfleteren, an apparel and textile design senior and member of SADA. “It’s hard for women to go through that because it is so defeminizing.”
Kristen Peczynski, an apparel and textile design senior and another designer in Saturday’s fashion show, said that raising money for The Path of Pink helps achieve SADA’s fashion goals.
“All of us know of someone who’s been affected by breast cancer,” Peczynski said. “Making a woman who has breast cancer look beautiful is great. Our end goal is to make everyone look beautiful, so if we can help a breast cancer survivor look beautiful, that’s our goal.”
To host the race in the street, the organization had to get M.A.C. Avenue blocked off, but Gruszka said the city was helpful and supportive.
“I had to send in a formal request to the city of East Lansing,” she said. “They actually loved the idea, so they were really cooperative.”
At about noon, many of the nearly 70 girls registered raced down the street.
Katie Woods, an apparel and textile design senior, was the first to break through the pink streamer marking the finish line, making her the winner of a gift card to DSW Shoe Warehouse.
“It was harder to run in heels, but it still felt like running,” Woods said. “I pretty much just picked the (heels) that matched what I was wearing and ones I could walk in.”
Overall, organizers were pleased with Sunday’s efforts to kick off Fashion Week, bring attention SADA and raise money for The Path of Pink.
“It’s something different that hasn’t been done in this area,” Vanfleteren said. “(It) gets people out and lets them show off their cute shoes. It’s kind of quirky.”
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For more information about SADA’s Fashion Week 2010, visit sadamsu.blogspot.com.
