Teens aim to prove: Fashion needn't be shockin'

PLEASANT GROVE — Marlene Moreira has a kicky sense of fashion. She loves to mix and match until she has an outfit no one else will be wearing.

Shaun Carley can put together a rad guy's ensemble with just a few out-of-pocket dollars.

And neither has to compromise or violate a school dress code to do so.

They are two of the 51 Utah Valley teenagers proving they can be both modest and stylish by wearing their choices in the annual Fashion Frenzy fashion show.

The show, which starts at 7 p.m. Thursday at Pleasant Grove High School, features casual and formal wear options that the high school crowd can wear without apology to their peers or their school administrators.

"I like how I look, and this has been fun," Carley said, clad in a plaid blue-and-white argyle sweater and light blue cotton shirt with khaki knee-length shorts. His outfit was topped off with blue suede shoes.

Moreira opens and closes the "student choice" segment of the show with a pink silky top worn with a white cotton jacket atop a white, cotton scarf-point skirt, with high-tied stacked heels.

Around them, others in the cast will sport leg-warmers, army jackets, sarong-type wraps, leather skirts, cowboy hats, hair flowers, scarves and even a ruffled "Seinfeld"-esque puffy shirt.

"I love the energy here," said Julia Schwerdt, one of the show's organizers and the representative from Character Connection, a major sponsor.

"You have been chosen to do this," Chris Donaldson, another organizer and the PTSA president the first year Fashion Frenzy was put on stage, tells the students.

"You are actors in a production — a clean production. So clean, so wonderful, that's there can be no question about it."

Donaldson and Schwerdt, along with this year's show chairwoman, Suzan Wright, choreographer Heather Anderson and other dedicated PTSA moms, are proud of the show.

They also believe it is part of a nationwide interest in more modest fashion choices.

"This is just part of letting them know that the silent majority cares. We're talking to the retailers here," Schwerdt said. "We might not win the battle but at least we're taking a step."

For the teens involved, Schwerdt said, it teaches them that people with intelligence, talent and personality don't need to go to the extreme to be noticed.

"We had 80 kids try out for our show this year," Donaldson said. "We had to turn away 30 even after we took 20 more than we used last year."

"I have one boy who told my daughter he didn't care what else happened as long as he made the football team and the Fashion Frenzy," said Wright.

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E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com