Reality star stages Boston fashion show

Lauren Conrad has done much to shed her image as a teenage star. The actress, best known for her roles in the MTV shows The Hills and Laguna Beach, showed herself to be an enterprising fashion designer. Her tour, the Lauren Conrad Collection College Tour fashion show (LC3), has been involved in the recent launch of TheQuad.com, an online social network designed specifically for college students. Saturday night's fashion show, held at The Estate in downtown Boston, marked the end of a four-city, cross-country tour for the design line.

The fashion show featured 10 students from various local colleges, including Lauren Bender, A&S '09. The girls submitted photos to TheQuad Web site, and Conrad chose the 10 who appeared in the show. Bender first heard of the contest from her roommates who have a friend employed by the Web site. With her strong interest in fashion, Bender found this opportunity to be a perfect fit. "I've taken a few classes at the Fashion School of Design, but this was my first runway experience. It was so fun to model clothes by such an amazing designer for our age group," Bender said.

Conrad then proceeded to send her holiday collection to the chosen girls, who in turn put together a fashion show as they saw fit. Other than providing the clothes and flying in to host the event, Conrad had little say in how the show was actually run. "It's really interesting for me to come in and see what the girls have put together," she said.

Bender had nothing but high praises for the experience as a whole. "We got to hang out with her for an hour before the show and had a chance to bring friends back and take pictures afterward; it was just an overall unique experience."

Conrad said that the main goal of her line was to create a wearable collection that appealed to the widest audience possible. She said, "I have clothes that I can share with both my mom and my little sister." Conrad said that she has always had an extreme passion for the fashion industry, and the dream of designing her own line has long ranked at the top of her list of goals. She said that experience is one of the most important elements of breaking into this extremely competitive industry. "You really need to be exposed to as many facets of the industry as possible. I've worked in retail, marketing, trade shows, etc. The more exposure, the better."

The show's sponsors - Mark Cosmetics, Aldo Shoes, and Xing Tea - were all present at the event to promote their respective products. With free gifts, samples, and discounts being distributed, the sponsors worked to engage attendees in conversations about their particular brand, internship opportunities, and even some philanthropic endeavors, including a "Have a Heart" necklace that seeks to raise funds for Mark's m.powerment campaign.

The campaign aims to raise awareness and money to end dating abuse and violence, and also to empower young women to take a stand for themselves. Women ages 16 to 24 experience the highest rate of dating violence, a statistic that both Mark Cosmetics and Conrad would like to change.

"As a 22 year-old, this statistic made me realize how important it is to let girls my age know that they can be empowered to prevent this from happening in their lives," Conrad said. Each model in the show wore one of these exclusive Lauren Conrad-designed necklaces to help promote the campaign. In addition, the necklaces were sold by Mark representatives at the show with 100 percent of the proceeds going directly to the effort. Conrad said the foundation chooses different organizations to which to donate grants.

TheQuad.com said that they could not have been more pleased with their working relationship with Conrad and the fashion tour. Sarah Metzger, college tonight representative, said, "The fashion shows were such a great way to work with Lauren and spread the word about TheQuad.com because we were able to really integrate college communities into the show. We wanted to reflect the type of interactivity you will find on TheQuad.com within the LC3 event."

As the fashion show segment wrapped up, the task of voting fell once again to the model's peers and other audience members. For the three hours following the show, attendees were asked to send text messages voting for their favorite models. The crowd-chosen favorite was then awarded a trip to Los Angeles to hang out with Conrad for a day during fashion week.