A fashion show will be held on the University of Arizona Mall Tuesday, Oct. 22.
Custom-made clothes will be worn by models as they strut around a stage and show off their tailored designs. These are not your usual models, however; they’re dogs.
At Dogs ‘n Denim, service dogs will model clothes made for them by UA fashion students.
Alena Maestas, a designer with the show, has been working with service dog Toffee to craft her outfit.
“It’s so fun! I was working on the U of A fashion week earlier last semester, so that was obviously measuring people, but with measuring dogs it’s a lot more fun,” Maestas said. “They’re just always so sweet, and you get to meet the dogs and get to know their stories.”
“I feel like with people, there’s a lot more to measure,” Maestas said. “Especially for the fashion show I did earlier, it was a lot of specific measurements, around the arm or around the leg. With dogs, you just measure them around the belly and give them a little head pat.”
Clarissa Siebern, Toffee’s handler, works with her disabled client Jake Sayer to give Toffee commands and help Sayer. Siebern and Sayer have been working with Toffee for 8 years, and they say Toffee will be retiring soon.
“I am the handler for Toffee for Jake,” Siebern said. “Jake is going to be applying to have his own service dog so that he can be the handler, so we thought ‘Toffee is 10 years old, and they do an automatic retirement at around twelve. Let’s start the process.’ She may be able to work with Jake until he’s matched with another dog; sometimes it takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to get matched.”
Siebern said she’s excited for the show.
“Someone in Canine Companions shared the show with us,” Siebern said. “Toffee has done fundraising and runway fashion stuff in California for Canine Companions, so we thought this’ll be cool for her to do that here. She hasn’t done it in a couple of years.”
Kate Bouffard, a student who works with Dogs ‘n Denim on logistics and sponsors, said there are two sponsors this year.
“We have Mama’s Famous Pizza and Heros and we have another pizza place too, actually. It’s R and R Pizza Express,” Bouffard said. “They both are helping us sponsor the event, and they gave us a thousand dollars so we’re able to put on the show.”
Professor Elizabeth Heuisler runs Dogs ‘n Denim. According to Heuisler, the show has been running for a few years now.
“We started in, I think, 2016. We used to do this Dogs ‘n Denim show at another school I worked at. I figured maybe we can do that, and we’ll show students how to make dog clothes,” Heuisler said. “It turned into a much bigger thing than we thought. It took on a life of its own.”
“The whole idea of this is working with these service dogs that give so much. All they want is a dog bone at the end of the day,” Heuisler said.
Dogs ‘n Denim will take place Oct. 22, from 5-7 p.m. on the UA Mall. Attendance is free, but VIP tickets may be purchased for $10.
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