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Timaru Sacred Heart School pupil Sarah Young, 8, will be on the catwalk during New York Fashion Week in February 2022.
A Timaru 8-year-old is preparing to embark on the trip of a lifetime after being selected to represent a fashion company on the runway during New York Fashion Week.
Sacred Heart School pupil Sarah Young will jet to The Big Apple in February 2022, to model for Musa Fabric, a company which promotes and sells material and apparel made out of banana and thread from the Philippines.
Her face will also appear on a Times Square billboard during the week, her mother Mto Olivares and stepfather Trevor Norton said.
The young girl caught the eye of Musa founder and fashion designer Joy Soo after Sarah modelled some of her clothes at the launch of the apparel company in Timaru in July, at the home of its New Zealand ambassadors Gary and Elvie Dennison.
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Olivares said photos from the launch were put on the company’s website and seen in the Philippines where the company’s headquarters are.
Sarah was then asked if she would be part of Musa’s fashion event in New York, her mother said.
“It’s been a shock for us, overwhelming, she is so lucky to have this opportunity,” Olivares said.
Supplied
Sarah Young, 8, modelling in June ahead of the Musa Fabric New Zealand launch in Timaru in July.
Timaru’s Musa, the only New Zealand-based branch of the company, is one of many worldwide, with some of the company’s profits injected back into the community. .
To make three metres of fabric of banana and thread takes one day and is produced by prisoners and indigenous people in Davao del Norte, in the Philippines. The finished material is used to make clothes, earrings, bracelets, sandals, and hats.
Musa is the botanical name for one of a few banana genuses.
Soo founded the business in January, 2020, after learning how banana fibre could be used to make fabric.
Sarah’s mother hopes the New York gig will help her daughter gain confidence but her focus is on her education.
“We want her to go on the right path and prioritise being an advocacy role model,” she said.
Norton said it was hard to believe the turn of events for his stepdaughter.
“Instead of painting the house we’re going to New York, and we will give her all the support we can.”
He said if Covid-19 restrictions prevented them going, Sarah’s image would still appear in Times Square.
All they had to do to prepare was complete a photo shoot and get her runway ready, he said.
JOHN BISSET/Stuff
Sarah Young, 8, with her nephew Elric Olivares, 4, is looking forward to modelling Musa during New York Fashion Week.
Sarah said she was excited about going to the United States as she had only been as far as Auckland.
During her spare time she enjoys playing basketball and when she grows up she would like to be a nurse, she said.
New York Fashion Week is a bi-annual event showcasing designers’ collections for the next season.
It is attended by about 230,000 visitors and organised by William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, (WME/IMG) an entertainment and media company, and the Council of Fashion Designers America.
