The One World Week Fashion Show: inclusive or exclusive?

The Fashion Show is said to be the highlight of One World Week at Warwick. With the purpose of raising awareness about other cultures and societies, can it really be given the title of the ‘One World’ Week Fashion Show when in reality it was the celebration of individualism?

The show, titled ‘Imaginarium’, showcased costumes, traditional performances and music from a number of different cultural societies at Warwick. The routines themselves, be them on the catwalk or dances, ranged from thrilling to calming, from amusing to intriguing.

However, among all the excitement one thing I did not see was integration. Each society showed off their nation with understandable pride, yet why wouldn’t they? The impression I got from the Fashion Show however was that each society was demonstrating their own culture, and the emphasis on learning about others did not really come through.

A Fashion Show it was but preceding it with the title ‘One World’ was slightly misleading because I was disappointed by the lack of cross-cultural appreciation. Surely this term suggests the coming together of different nationalities? Things such as a fusion of African and Indian dance, or even students from one society modelling clothes from those of another would help increase our knowledge and understanding of each other. As a university that prides itself on the fact that it welcomes students from such a vast array of different cultural backgrounds, this seems like something that should be highly encouraged.

Unbeknown to me when I came here, it is now clear that at Warwick University you can potentially meet someone from every country in the world. It is an amazing thing to be surrounded by this huge mixture of people, and without any exaggeration, I learn something new almost everyday by talking to people from around the world.

Of course, this is not to say that we should not take time to celebrate our own cultures. It’s more of a case of finding a balance. The fact however that there does not seem to be any major society or event that pushes us to learn more about each other while we are at university seems a shame in such a brilliantly diverse environment.

Having said this, it will be interesting to see what next year’s One World Week Fashion Show will have in store.