Senior Reyn Linder began sewing at the age of 8 after her grandma bought her a sewing machine for her birthday, her very first project being a My Little Pony nightgown. Ever since Linder has had a passion for sewing, although it wasn’t until her high school years that she realized how passionate she was about designing. Despite not even knowing about the fashion show freshman year, when she first saw a Blend announcement announcing its presence, her interest immediately piqued. During sophomore year, Linder became an intern as well as a designer and began to learn what it takes to organize a fashion show.

McCallum’s fashion show has been going on for more than a decade, previously run by Mr. Rogers. Linder has missed his presence and expertise in running the show; this year, however, Linder has enjoyed having more control over running the show with her fellow senior directors. This year Sondra Primeaux, a frequent volunteer at Austin Creative Reuse, has stepped up as a mentor to the senior designers. Austin Creative Reuse is a secondhand craft store with a workspace, which Primeaux has made available to the designers to use for workshops.

Primeaux has been a fashion designer, maker and educator for over 20 years and has put on three different fashion shows associated with Austin Creative Reuse.

“I got involved with the fashion show as a volunteer this year when Reyn reached out to me to see if there was any way I could help support the show this year,” Primeaux said. “I love the fashion industry and teaching, so I jumped at the chance.”

Primeaux has taught Reyn since she was little, watching her progress as she has developed her artistic skills.

“I taught Reyn how to sew when she was around 10, so you can imagine that I’m beyond proud of her and the work she’s done throughout her four years participating in the show,” Primeaux said.

Being a fashion designer is not easy and Linder’s dedication and determination has impressed Primeaux over the years.

“What I’ve loved about Reyn is her dedication to creating a body of work and how she is unafraid to keep taking risks while putting in the time,”  Primeaux said.

Primeaux recognizes the effort Linder has put into translating her ideas into something beautiful and wearable.

“Reyn seems to have a lot of intuition when it comes to how things are going to fit,” Primeaux said. 

Making a garment from an idea requires several steps and skills. A designer has to sketch, to choose materials, to drape and make patterns and then to fit the garment on a model. Navigating the process takes perseverance and a ton of effort.

“It takes a lot of practice to get there,” Primeaux said, “and I think Reyn’s biggest strength is that she’s willing to put in the work.” 

This year the designers had a clear vision for what they wanted the show to look and feel like. Linder has maintained her focus and energy to realize this vision throughout this entire year.

“Beyond her designs, I think Reyn has been a very impressive leader in designing and executing this entire fashion show,” Primeaux said.

Each annual fashion show has been built around a creative theme, which guides the designers and creates a unifying idea for the entire show. The theme for the 2025 show was “Celestial Wilderness Beyond the Horizon.”

“We really wanted to do something space-like, but then also Earth at the same time, which is why the theme is celestial wilderness beyond the horizon,” Linder said. “We also really wanted to do something related to nature and the beauty of it, as well as the surrealism of earth and space.”

The purpose of this broad and somewhat obscure theme was to create something the designers could interpret in multiple ways. In the past, some designers have struggled with a straight-on theme. Some of these themes were Dreamland, Shadows and Reflections, Album Covers and Scrapbooking. Each year the goal is to inspire new creative ideas. This year the organizers prioritized choosing a theme from which everyone could take inspiration.

“I designed every year,” Linder said. “My sophomore year I interned, and they don’t let you model as an intern, because you’re backstage. But I have designed each year since then.” 

Linder emphasizes the quality of her designs, spending as much time as she needs to make her ideas come to life.

“The first year, I took a lot of time on just two looks, and really spent time on making my own patterns and doing a lot of little details,” Linder said. “I love just throwing something on things and just like working with it.”

The most fulfilling part of the fashion show for Linder is seeing everything come together during the two shows.

Putting on the show is always a lot to handle, organizing all the designers and models throughout the year, but for Linder, the effort is always worth it.

“Everything is always stressful in the beginning, but everything always comes together at the end,” Linder said. 

This year, Linder has focused on another art form that she deeply loves: bead work.

“My designs this year are a lot of beadwork,” Linder said. “I love beads and beadwork and all that kind of stuff. I also make jewelry. I guess it inspired me from nature and space.”

She also draws inspiration for her work from ’40s and ’50s beaded fringe as well as beaded lamps.

“I felt like it was a thing that I really liked and no one was really doing but then now it’s like, really popular,” Linder said. “I guess making jewelry was always really fun for me, but I just got really into beaded fringe and stuff like that.” 

She also takes a lot of inspiration from Pinterest, watching runway shows and her favorite designer Daniel Roseberry. She also loves some classic designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Betsy Johnson.

 “I have a lot of likes, artists and paintings that I really like and [that] inspire me,” Linder said.

Linder also takes a lot of inspiration from older designers, incorporating old and new ideas into her own work.

“I’m into painting also,” Linder said. “I do like painting, but I’m not great at it. I mostly do surrealism.”

She feels her drawings and paintings correspond to her designs through color palettes, such as complementary, and really bright, fun colors. 

This year, Linder has really come into her own through running the fashion show.

“The first year was a little bit hard for me, because I was really scared, and I don’t know why the seniors seemed so scary to me that first year, and this year, it’s just been so much fun. Everyone is so nice,” Linder said. “This year has been really fun for me because I love being in charge and being able to know everything that’s going on and being able to just share as much as I can with other people.”

Leadership, communication and getting everyone on the same page have enabled Linder to persevere through the struggles.

“I just go with the flow,” Linder said. “I feel like I’m not very good at planning things out, and when I do, it never goes my way. So, yeah, I kind of just start, and then I just see where it takes me.”

Linder has only gotten more immersed in her work this year and has grown to embrace challenges and work through them when something goes wrong.

“I think I’ve gotten more into it than ever,  just wanting to do it all the time,” Linder said. “I felt like over the years, it was just something I wanted to do every once in a while, and I would kind of get upset when something didn’t go my way, so I’d stop for a really long time.”

Two years ago, during intermission of the fashion show, they had a band play during the show; last year, however, there wasn’t anything like that. This year they showed a short film created about the designers and models.

“I felt like the audience didn’t know enough about what was going on behind the scenes of everything,” Linder said. “They didn’t know about how long we’ve been working on this and how it’s such a big part of our lives.”

At first senior Tallulah Bingham wasn’t sure how to feel about Linder’s big personality when they met in math class freshman year, but she soon realized just how close they would become.

“It always felt like everyone was looking at us, but she was shameless,” Bingham said. “I found comfort in that. We’ve been dating ever since, for almost 4 years.” 

Since then, both Linder and Bingham have gone on an artistic journey together.

“I’m always jealous of Reyn’s art because although it has no system or order to it; it always comes out so beautiful and intricate, and everything that she does is entirely authentically her,” Bingham said. “She refuses to do things that she thinks have been done before.”

Bingham, an artist herself, admires how unconventional Linder’s process is. Unlike a lot of artists, she doesn’t feel the need to meticulously plan her artwork.

“I will never be able to wrap my head around the fact that Reyn never really sketches her designs before she makes them,” Bingham said. “Everything she actually makes just becomes what it becomes in the process of making it.”

Bingham appreciates Linder’s dedication to perfection and her determination to create art she absolutely loves.

“Reyn’s biggest strength as a designer is that she doesn’t like to cut corners,” Bingham said. “She will work on one inch of something for days and days until it’s exactly the way she wants it. She’s committed, she’s passionate.” 

Linder is passionate about pushing against the fast fashion industry despite how normalized it continues to become.

“I admire Reyn’s maturity and morals as someone thinking about going into the fashion industry,” Bingham said. “She understands that it’s a competitive market, and she wants to be a part of the people who make clothes for the art and culture of it rather than for the money or the status.”