Daniel Moore’s labor of love: ‘Iconoclast’ stuns at 2025 Spring Fashion Show

By Sophia Oppedisano Editorial Staff The Framingham State Fashion Club held its annual Spring Fashion Show on May 2. This tradition gives fashion students a platform to showcase their work, and for seniors, it is a culmination of their time in the University's fashion program. Daniel Moore, a senior fashion design major and president of the Fashion Club, was at the center of this year's show. Moore’s life is a quintessential, and as he would say, “fabulous” coming-of-age story. After high school, Moore said his life became a whirlwind akin to Barbie’s. At 18 years old, Moore said he packed up his car after graduating from high school and moved to Texas after his dad asked him to leave when Moore came out as gay. “My original plan was to go to South Carolina … but I just kept going. I ended up in College Station, Texas,” he said. While living in Texas, Moore worked at a Subway sandwich shop, biding his time until the end of the year when, by chance, he met a flight attendant who convinced him to apply for a job with the airline she worked for. He got the job and moved to St. Louis, Missouri for ground school training before settling in Denver, Colorado, as a newly minted flight attendant. Moore would fly with Delta and United, sometimes switching between the two in a single day. He said he learned how to tie his ties with three different knots with help from other male flight attendants. “By the age of 20, I had been to every state, and I had met a lot of people, and I had partied a lot, and I'm like, ‘You know what? I really want a career, and this is not a career, and I feel like, the longer I do this, I'll have fun, but I don't feel like I'm setting myself up for anything in the future,’” Moore said. When the less-than-adequate paycheck and donning a suit every day began to wear on him, Moore said he stepped away from aviation after just a year. “I wanted to do something creative, but I didn't know what it was, so I came back to regroup,” he added. After returning to Massachusetts, Moore spent time working in the Iron Duck factory in Chicopee when he was 23. He said working at the factory helped him develop his sewing skills, and he was able to become quicker and more precise with the sewing machines. He said the factory was exactly how one would picture it. “A series of cheugy sewing machines in this big warehouse sort of setting, and there were just women sewing. I was the only man who worked there in the sewing section,” he said. While the factory was a setting where he honed his sewing skills, Moore said his passion for fashion started when he began his first retail job at Target in 2017. “I just fell in love with the industry. “I love what I do. I worked my way up very fast when I got the job in 2017. By 2018, I became a visual merchandiser, and then I worked my way up to team lead,” he added. His work with Target influenced Moore to go back to school, and he began taking night classes at Holyoke Community College in 2022 “with a dream of going to fashion school,” he said. After transferring to Framingham State for his sophomore year, Moore kept his job at Target, continuing to keep a close relationship with the business where he launched his budding career. Now, at the end of his senior year, just a month before the Fashion Show, Moore was bent over an inside-out tumble of gray fabric on his workbench that would soon become a coat. He works with a deftness that makes it hard to believe he didn’t grow up with a longing for needle and thread. Moore has been in the Framingham State fashion program for three years. Since his first year, Moore has been dreaming of and developing his senior portfolio collection using his class time. “My first class here was with Priscilla Remis, and I remember she said something along the lines of, ‘In three years, you're going to be presenting a portfolio to people who are going to hire you. Everything you make now - do the best you can… because this is going to get you a job when you graduate.’ She mentioned trying to keep it all cohesive to create a collection, and I took that so seriously,” Moore said. Moore’s inspiration for his senior portfolio is personal. He has taken the rules of Gay Pride clothing motifs and completely dismantled them, throwing out the rainbows and swapping them for a powerful, boxy, industrial style. “This is a Pride collection, and I know it doesn't look like it, because there's no rainbows - that's the whole point. I wanted to dive into the deep and rich layers of queer culture and use symbols from history, or symbols from modern-day culture in the garments and the ensembles that I'm making,” he said. His senior portfolio is called “Iconoclast,” a word often used to describe queer people in the 1980s. Someone labeled an iconoclast is a person who does not conform to societal norms and does not obey tradition, Moore said. He decided on the name as a tribute to the groups he admires that stood up for queer culture during earlier times when things were far more “taboo,” he said. Moore expressed his respect and gratitude for the resilience of the LGBTQ+ community throughout history. “It’s like, ‘Wow, that’s just how I get to live my life now,” he said. Along with his admiration for those who came before him, Moore said, “The turmoil of the times” also influenced his work. “When I'm creating something, it's like the first thing on my mind. “I also think Pride has just become so commercialized and so oversaturated, and the rainbow as a symbol for queer people has just been bastardized. … There’s so much rich and deep history with queer people … and so I really want to reflect that,” he said. Since his first year at FSU, Moore said he’s been leaning into menswear, industrial looks, and powerful silhouettes, all of which led him to “run with” a new take on Pride wear. Some of his pieces even take influence from his time as a flight attendant. He showed off a jumpsuit and a jacket that fit the aviation motif. “I think it might just be a personal narrative in my head, because back in 2017, this is something that I would wear, like a jumpsuit, just going out to party. Plus, it has that ’70s collar, which sort of looks like wings,” he said. He even sewed his flight attendant wings, a pin all crew members wear on flights, into one of the jackets, adding a personal touch from his past. Moore’s collection includes 10 ensembles, seven of which originated as class projects over the years, while the other three are personal projects. A month before the Fashion Show, Moore had a working sketch of his portfolio in Adobe Illustrator. The portfolio displayed each look on a digital model set against its own backdrop with a gray border where his mission statement and core fabrics and themes were written. Moore gestured to his laptop, and his face lit up as he described how one jacket evolved from the mockup on his computer screen to a physical piece. “The jacket here uses a technique called Celtic quilting … that probably took me 55 hours to do,” he said. The jacket pairs with pants that needed 29 pattern pieces. Moore said it took a long time to measure, cut, and match up seams. The dresses Moore designed are reminders of women’s fashion from the 1950s, while the tan jumpsuit and dark overalls juxtapose them with powerful lines that embody industrial work uniforms. Even with the industrial incorporations, the collection is timeless, sleek, and authentic - a creative foray into a new way to express queer identity. “It serves as a love letter to the bold and beautiful queer collective, a celebration in fabric of LGBTQ+ kinship - from the earliest whispers to the loudest roars,” Moore said. As a design student and president of the Fashion Club, Moore said he wears “so many hats,” planning club meetings and the show on top of designing and executing his senior portfolio. “My head's tired - I have too many hats on,” he said with a laugh. Moore said he is meticulously organized, a trait he owes to the sizable planner he is known for carrying around campus. “Oh my God, this poor book - I use this thing to death! If I didn't have this book, I would not get anything done,” he said. Eilish Heffernan, Fashion Club vice president, said, “Daniel never misses a beat. … I laugh at him, but he has this planner that's literally so big, and he writes everything down. … He just genuinely wants what's best for the Fashion Department, and he really puts everything into it.” When Moore took on the role of Fashion Club president this past year, he decided to pour his creativity, effort, and the majority of the club's budget into producing a beautiful Fashion Show. At a Student Government Association club representative meeting on Feb. 11, Moore spoke about an idea he had about collaboration among clubs to increase membership and excitement for getting involved on campus. He said he wanted to use the Fashion Show as an opportunity for clubs on campus to help make the show “bigger, better, and more enjoyable. “The Fashion Show has been a steady sort of thing, and we really just want to take it to the next level… and just show what not only the Fashion Department has to offer, but what Framingham State has to offer, because it’s one of the biggest events on campus. … We want it to improve in the years to come,” he said at the meeting. As he sat sewing a few weeks later, he said he was thinking, “‘How can we improve this year over what we've done in the previous years?’ I was like, ‘Well, we've never really done anything with anybody else,’ and I felt like that would really drive involvement. At the same time, our numbers at the club meetings were so low. … The collabs were just an idea to fix both of those issues and help all the clubs.” Moore worked with the Art Club and Latinxs Unidos N'Accion (LUNA) for this year’s show. Paige Rainville, Art Club president, collaborated with Moore to create a 13-piece art gallery which was displayed during the show. Rainville described the gallery as their “passion project” for the months leading up to the show. The gallery was also juried, and two students had a chance to win a prize for their work. Moore was one of the jurors. Marcus Falcão, a sophomore, won for his two pieces, “Queen’s Garden” and “Cour Royale,” which Rainville said perfectly fit the theme of the Fashion Show. The other prize went to sophomore Kendall Winston for her large canvas piece, “Dad’s Garden.” Rainville said they would “absolutely” work with the Fashion Club again. “At the end [of the show], Daniel had given [us] a big hug and he goes, ‘Do this next year!’” they added. Moore said the collaborations added an incredible new layer to the show. “I think it was glamorous. … I've talked a lot with LUNA, I've talked a lot with the Art Club, and I don't know who's going to be president of the Fashion Club next year, but everyone else is on board to keep this momentum going and make it bigger and better next year. … Every good idea starts out very, very small, and I'm hoping that, though I won't be here, this will sort of continue on in the years to come.” Laura Kane, class of 2009, is a fashion design professor and faculty advisor to the Fashion Club. She has seen the Fashion Show evolve from her years as a student to her years teaching. Kane said the Fashion Club ran the Fashion Show without any assistance from the Fashion Department when she was a student. “The show used to take place in the McCarthy Center Forum - that's how small it was at that point,” she said. After she graduated, Kane spent time at other universities observing how they ran their fashion shows. She used her experience to bring some new ideas to Framingham State. As the years went by, Kane said the Fashion Show continued to grow until it eventually became the “face of the department,” and more funding was coming from the University. “I think every year, we come up with new things that we want to include and new things that we want to incorporate, and it's going to require more and more help and assistance. We have an insanely amazing team that helps with this show. … Part of it is all students. Every single chair was put down by a student. Every single program handed out was designed and written by the students,” Kane said. The promotion, model casting and recruitment, and show rehearsals are also all run by the students, Kane added. The Fashion Show is a big source of pride for Kane. “I think there's just nothing quite like that energy because you can look at a garment in a picture, you can look at the portfolio… but you're not seeing it in motion. … This entire thing is just like my favorite part of my job,” she said. As for working with Moore, Kane said she wishes she could have “Danny on an e-board and be club president every year! “He's been a student of mine for a while, so I've seen his evolution. He's always been this driven. … His work is amazing, and I knew he wanted to put a ton of work into his own collection, so even though he was juggling all of this stuff, it didn't get in the way of being there for when he needed to be there, and doing the work that he promised that he was going to do, which is just fantastic. … I wish I had a design house for him to work at,” she said. Kane said watching Moore hone his craft is “the reason why I get up in the morning. I love it, especially when you find a student who is willing to challenge themselves.” The show ran on May 2 in the Logan Gymnasium. Moore developed a “Queen’s Garden” theme for the evening. The stage was adorned with flowers, and a PowerPoint designed by Moore featured a beautiful garden on which the designers' names were displayed. There was also an area sectioned off for photo opportunities with flowers and fairy lights decorating the backdrop. Kane said it may have been the most successful show in history, as all of the chairs by the stage and the bleachers were filled. The back of the gym was standing room only. Moore’s collection was the last to walk the runway. “Iconoclast” took the stage to “How Soon is Now?” by The Smiths, a song Moore said he had picked out for about a year and a half. “It really captures what I was trying to give with this collection. The whole iconoclast is the isolated nature of being somebody who rebels against the status quo. The lyrics are perfect. I think the energy of the song really captured the aesthetic I was going for with the whole industrial vibe. I think it was a perfect song,” he said. Moore’s models captured a moody, confident vibe and played off their pieces stunningly. With 10 looks, Moore had the biggest collection in the show, and the Fashion Department awarded him the Mancuso Award for “Most Innovative” for his effort. The award includes $1,000, and Moore said he will be able to display his winning ensembles next to the artwork that inspired them at the Danforth Art Museum for the summer. Kane said, “I just really appreciate Danny's use of fabric and silhouette and his playfulness. It's all very marketable, but it's also very high end.” Moore said he will be presenting his portfolio to some potential employers on May 9, and his intent after graduation is to get his foot in the door of the industry with a company like Target or TJX. “I think my end goal is to have my own brand. I really want to have a boutique or something with my name on it where I'm in total creative control - sort of like a creative director role. I just don't think I'm quite there yet,” he said. As for the future of “Iconoclast,” Moore said, “I think it might just live in this era. I love it so much, and I've put so much work into it, but I have so much growing to do, and when I look at it, I see all of the imperfections, and I see all of the room for growth that I have.” Moore took the stage as his models strutted on their final round of the runway, waving and accepting his flowers from a supportive and lively crowd. He said the success of the show and all of the praise he received from the Fashion Department felt “incredible” and “very fulfilling.” As he prepares to leave Framingham State, Moore said his final advice to his peers is “Love yourself.”

[ Editor's Note: Marcus Falcão is a Staff Illustrator for The Gatepost. ]