A well-lit parking lot — an unlikely place for anything except cars — was the site for RENA Magazine’s second annual Fashion Show — the Fabric of Reality — this past Friday. Each outfit was designed and inspired by a specific episode or character from former Binghamton icon Rod Serling’s television show, “The Twilight Zone.” For an hour, RENA Magazine took a sold-out line of spectators on a journey through high fashion and their passions.

To the founders of RENA Magazine, the success of the fashion show was a satisfying result of the hard work poured into it. Audrey Franza, a senior majoring in economics who serves as RENA’s editor-in-chief, is one of the magazine’s founders, along with Cameron Wallace, a senior majoring in environmental science who works as the magazine’s creative director.

Franza described the fashion show as the biggest event that RENA has held.

“We have been blessed with the most amazing team,” Franza said. “If this is the event that Binghamton University remembered me by, I would be more than happy about it.”

This was not RENA’s first attempt at holding a fashion show, with multiple events held in the Fine Arts building last year. Hannah Sperber — a senior majoring in social work — described attending the first fashion show as a positive experience, especially due to the splendor of all of the outfits and makeup.

“The first one was really cool,” Sperber said. “It was really good, and they had multiple shows because they could only fit 30 to 40 people, but this one is on a much larger scale.”

The increased size of the fashion show brought upon a set of logistical challenges. Grace Moon, the publishing and layout director of RENA Magazine and a senior majoring in electrical engineering, discussed the difficulties in setting up a show in a parking lot.

“We have been working for months and months — literally this entire week, we have been posted up at [Wallace’s] house,” Moon said. “Classes were not the priority. I came on campus at 3 [p.m.], a few of them came at 10 [p.m.] All of our models, their call time was 2 p.m. The show is at 9 p.m.”

RENA Magazine recently became an official club on campus, receiving a Student Association charter, but organizing the event was still a complex effort. The costs of using the parking lot as a venue were covered by BU’s Convocations Committee, a group that supports programs that bolster the “intellectual, cultural and artistic aspects” of the University’s curriculum. Other costs of running the fashion show were assisted by the $12 cost of tickets.

“We made this with no budget,” Moon said. “We really made this happen out of scratch.”

The tenacity of the RENA Magazine was most highlighted, however, not just by the effort in organizing it, but with the star of the show — what people wore. All the outfits the models wore were handpicked by RENA, which included handmade clothing made by RENA.

At the end of the fashion show, all members of the E-Board walked the catwalk, including Wallace, Franza and Moon, as well as Justin Wang, RENA’s treasurer and a junior majoring in graphic design, Mariya Ivanova, the operations director and a senior majoring in anthropology, and Aminatou Diallo, the modeling director and a senior majoring in biology. For the organizers, the hard work that the team endured was worth it, as they stretched the Fabric of Reality and created something worthy of being remembered.

Editor’s note (4/17/23): This article has been updated to correct several inaccuracies. Justin Wang, a junior majoring in graphic design, was incorrectly listed as a sophomore majoring in business administration. Additionally, the funding that covered the costs of the parking lot was originally attributed to RENA in the article, however this funding was sourced from a grant by BU’s Convocations Committee.