Patrons are encouraged to dress up for the red carpet event slated for Feb. 17

There are 53 students in Laura Thompson’s cosmetology program at Marshall Technical School. Every single one of them is busy right now, working feverishly as the days click by towards the program’s big night, the Met Gala, scheduled for February 17 at 6 p.m. at Sand Mountain Park.

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Tickets are on sale for $15 each in the front office of the Tech School. It was an absolutely huge event last year.

“We sold more than 600 tickets last year and we hope to sell that many or more this year,” Mrs. Thompson said. “Sand Mountain Park has proven to be a great venue for this event.”

They don’t call it a fashion show anymore, but it is a fashion show. The students – 51 girls and two boys – work in teams to create elaborate dresses. This year’s them is “Upcycle, Recycle,” and the fashions have to be either upcycled or recycled.

Mrs. Thompson explained exactly what those terms mean.

If you took a dress, changed it enough to make it completely new, that would be “upcycling.” If you took six pairs of old blue jeans, cut them up and made a dress out of them, that would be “recycling.”

This is the 14th year for the show. The students will also decorate the event space, which includes a red carpet.

Patrons of the event are encouraged to dress up, just like a real Met gala, but it doesn’t have to be too dressy. There are rumors the dads are planning to wear boots, blazers and cowboy hats.

“It’s an opportunity to dress up, see a type of show you don’t get many chances to see and then maybe go out to eat somewhere nice,” Mrs. Thompson said. “It will be a nice evening.”

Other Tech School teachers are pitching in to help with the big night. Melissa Gilbert, who instructs the Teacher Academy, and her students are handling the judge’s area, setting up the awards, the gift baskets and things of that nature.

“We’re a big family here at the Tech School,” Mrs. Thompson said.

The Cosmetology Program calls its salon the “Libela Salon” and it’s in a brand new space this year (it was displaced by construction of Snead’s new workforce development center on the campus).

The new salon looks just amazing and turned out to be a really nice space. There’s talk of building a classroom on the back of the building but everything is taught in the salon for now.