Over three hot days in early June, the historic Boise Depot bustled with Boise’s best dressed.
Rows of chairs lined a sleek, white runway where models showcased looks curated by local designers, student stylists and emerging creatives.
At the heart of the glitz and glamour is Erica Becker, the visionary behind Boise Fashion Week.
Becker founded the nonprofit in 2023 when she noticed a gap in the city’s creative scene.
“There’s a lot of creatives that have an interest [in the beauty and fashion industries] but there was nowhere to showcase those interests,” Becker said. “As someone who comes from [a design] background, I had those resources and realized everything was set up in a way [in Boise] that we could pull all those resources together — someone just needed to do it.“
Becker lovingly describes Boise as an“artistic, creative culture”, a spirit that is woven within the patchwork of Boise Fashion Week. The annual event has quickly become a platform for collaboration and visibility, bringing people together to celebrate the city’s unique style and artistry.
“When you have artistic culture enrichment, the entire community is elevated. It makes the creative economy stronger,” Becker said. “[Boise Fashion Week] spotlights that there are real jobs in creative fields. These are things that people can go on and make careers out of. That’s definitely something worth paying attention to.”
Boise Fashion Week 2025 opened with a showcase dedicated to student designers.
Among the emerging designers was Paige Householder, a recent graduate of University of Idaho’s Apparel, Textiles and Design program. She presented her senior capstone collection “REKINDLED” on the runway for the first time at Boise Fashion Week’s Student Designers Showcase.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Householder said of the experience. Leading up to the event, she spent countless hours delegating looks to models and envisioning runway presentation.
“It was definitely a learning experience. I went in today knowing nothing — now I feel like I could do that again, easily.”
“REKINDLED” was sponsored by Cotopaxi, who challenged Householder to create sustainable, multi-use garments from fabric swatches and sample garments the brand was no longer using.
“My whole line was inspired by vintage camping — retro, nostalgic colors and silhouettes,” Householder said. “I tried to incorporate a lot of squares and pointed edges, which I felt [highlighted] the camping aspect. If you look at pictures of old camping newspapers, they had a lot of similar colors and shapes.”
Each piece in Householder’s collection was thoughtfully designed with fun and functionality in mind.
One model wore a retro-inspired mini skirt that transformed into shorts at the tug of two small buttons. Another carried a large patchwork bag that quickly morphed into a vest with the pull of a zipper, a nod to one of Householder’s early experiments with transformable garments.
“I had made a similar vest bag design a couple years ago for a class project, but it didn’t turn out really well,” Householder said. “I really wanted to redo that design. That sparked the idea of having [functionality] as a concept throughout the whole line.”
While she had never previously considered participating in a fashion show, Householder said she’d love to be involved with similar projects in the future. Currently a technical surface design intern at Hanna Andersson, a Scandinavian children’s clothing brand, she is eager to pursue a professional design career.
Householder wasn’t the only student gaining hands-on experience at Boise Fashion Week.
Behind the scenes, a team of cosmetology students from Paul Mitchell The School Boise worked tirelessly each day to ensure models were runway ready while building their portfolios.
What began as a simple phone call from Becker to the school has since evolved into one of the event’s most meaningful partnerships.
“These students are entering into the industry from a cosmetology standpoint, not as designers, but it’s still giving them the opportunity for resume building and meeting people,” Becker said. “Their network amplified and they’ve made all these connections. That’s going to ultimately open doors for them.”
More than half of the current cosmetology students at Paul Mitchell signed up to volunteer for Boise Fashion Week.
“The models came in with a general idea of what they would want. We weren’t told anything about their looks until they were in our chairs,” Kira Jackson, student at Paul Mitchell, said. She worked with model Savannah Belle, who told Jackson she would be wearing a “Barbie” pink dress. “[Savannah] told me, ‘I want massive, voluminous curls.’ She was in my chair all day until the event. We were sectioning it into the smallest sections I’ve ever done on hair – just curling and curling. It was so much fun”.
After Boise Fashion Week posted videos of the models on social media, including one with Savannah Belle as the thumbnail, Jackson found her work receiving attention. Multiple local salons reached out to congratulate her.
“When you’re watching a fashion show growing up, you typically think ‘oh, that person is so beautiful, that look is so beautiful’, but you never think about the people that made them beautiful,” Jackson said. “Looking back at the show and knowing I was one of those people is so exciting — It flusters me a little bit.”
Another Paul Mitchell student, Bailey Franco, worked on the makeup of model Aneylen Bailey.
“It was a super fun experience. The model I got to work on was so sweet. It was a great networking opportunity for all of the students who signed up for it. I think everybody really put their best into it,” Franco said.
“It definitely showed me that going through school and taking advantage of the programs they have to offer,” Franco continued.”Like Boise Fashion Week, [it] opened a lot of opportunities and showed me how much networking can really do for you early on. It really opened my eyes and gave me hope for the future.”
Now in its third year, Boise Fashion Week continues to be a hub for the city’s creative fashion endeavors, providing opportunities to emerging designers, models and cosmetologists alike.
“It’s hard to take a step back sometimes and think about how [Boise Fashion Week] is getting way bigger than we expected,” Becker said. “When I think back to when I was a student, I know exactly when the moment hit when I was like ‘this is what I want to do’. It is cool to see on social media that we have students sharing those types of things and saying their experience was a dream come true.”
