“It invites you to be bold when you wear it. It’s a very simple yet versatile top but it wants you to put more of your attitude and style into it,” said Kanisha Ffriend, a sophomore health and exercise science major and campus representative for the student-owned clothing line Czari.
Ffriend unveiled Czari for the first time to Syracuse University students days before the fashion show via Facebook and Instagram to get people excited for its later appearance on the runway. The line has already caught the eye of several SU students on campus, as well as in the social media realm.
Czari, (pronounced ZAH-ri) made its debut at SU at the African Student Union (ASU [12]) and the Haitian American Student Association (H.A.S.A. [13]) Rip the Runway fashion show last Friday in Goldstein Auditorium. The line was created by Ffriend’s childhood friend, Arienne Callender, who is a sophomore student at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania.
Callender first started the line in January 2013, with the intention of making a clothing line that, “embodies the whole Bronx and New York attitude” and “ embodies a spirit of power and wealth,” Ffriend explained.
The label name Czari comes from the the word “czar,” a term which means emperor or king. The name represents the emperor and empress state of mind that wearers take on when they wear the label.
“It makes that bold statement,” said Kwamé Phipps, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences and model for the line. “I feel that whoever wears Czari is setting a trend. There’re being a leader. They’re being their own emperor or empress.”
“I liked the way the models played their own styles and used the shirts to combine them together,” said freshman communications and rhetorical studies major Bamidele Idowu who saw Czari for the first time at last week’s runway show.
Ffriend is confident about the success of her friend’s label and looks forward to continuing to brand it at SU.
Said Ffriend: “It’s not like they are just wearing a t-shirt that they just pulled off the rack. It’s more...It’s grand, it’s bigger.”
For more information on Czari, visit their website at www.czvri.com [14].
