Comet spirit with style

Fashion Club selling school scarves to fund trip to Iowa State University

By Kate Hayden | khayden@charlescitypress.com

Collegiate-level style is now available for Comets and Charles City school district families looking to show their stripes during colder weather.

Comet scarves, sold as a fundraiser by Charles City High School’s Fashion Club, are now available for $20 each. The knit accessories are dual-sided, one side with plain orange and the other orange-and-black striped, and have a Charles City Comets logo at the bottom of each end. Each side also has ‘COMETS’ in a bold white font, so acquaintances will never mistake where the wearer’s team allegiance lies.

The idea planted itself in Fashion Club member Mariah McKenzie’s head after she noticed the Mason City soccer team selling similar scarves for their school.

“I thought, ‘oh, that’s a really cool idea’, because we don’t have anything like that for apparel in Charles City,” McKenzie said. “I had seen on the tag ‘Diehard Scarves’, which is the company that makes them, and so I found out that was a fundraiser we could do for Charles City.”

In August, McKenzie contacted Justin DeVore, Communications and Community Engagement specialist in the Charles City Community School District, and started sorting through Charles City logo options to include in the scarves’ final design. The final logo selection showcases both the city and the team name, McKenzie said.

After working with representatives at Diehard Scarves, McKenzie had ten final designs to show to other members of the Fashion Club, which voted on the final design to sell.

“We all really enjoyed the idea of it, and we all thought the scarves were really cute,” club member Bailey Orthel, sophomore, said.

Proceeds from the scarves will go to the club’s planned trip to the Iowa State University’s annual Fashion Show, an event advertised as the largest student-run fashion show in the nation.

“We think that’d be a really great experience for the Fashion Club,” McKenzie said. “That’s one of the major schools in Iowa that has a fashion program.”

McKenzie and freshman Lily Woodard are both interested in going into a fashion design or merchandising program after high school. The ISU Fashion Show, on April 8, will showcase more than 150 student garment designs.

Although the Fashion Club is sponsored in part by the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, providing club members with a rough guideline of activities and discussions they can take part in, the Comet scarf sale was locally pitched. All funds will stay with the Fashion Club.

The club has about 56 scarves left out of an original order of 100. The scarves arrived around Oct. 10.

“We’re hoping to sell at some basketball games this upcoming season. We sold at the last football game in Charles City, and we also sold at the Cheer Invitational,” McKenzie said.

The club meets during SMART Lunch, taking time to do accessories crafts or learn industry terminology. It’s the second year the Fashion Club has been active, and the first year the club has held a fundraiser.

“We like that it can incorporate everyone in Charles City,” McKenzie said.

Anyone interested in purchasing a scarf can contact the Fashion Club through their Twitter account, @FIDMfashioncchs, or email members at fashionclubcchs@gmail.com. Checks can be made payable to the CCHS Fashion Club.

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