The much anticipated Masquerade Ball took place on Friday 27 March. Here's what happened during and in the lead up to the event.
The Masquerade Ball’s Glamour: A Paradoxical Approach to Combating Fast Fashion and its Environmental Impact.
The much-anticipated SU Masquerade Ball has come and gone (Friday 27 March 2026). However, what lingers on is not just the memory created, it’s the impact that was made through all events and activities that led up to the ball and after.
What was done?
The core goal of the masquerade ball, was to embed sustainability into students’ lifestyle at Roehampton (and that’s exactly what we did!) But the question is, how did we go about it?
Training Student Leaders to Lead on Crafts Workshops
We wanted all activities associated with the Masquerade Ball to be entirely student-led. What better way to achieve that than to train student leaders from across the university to lead on these activities? We employed the services of Bridget Steenkamp, a PhD student at the university and a seasoned sustainability campaigner. With her help, we were able to train our part-time officers and other student leaders to gain necessary skills required when leading on craft making workshops such as making risk assessments, organising, identifying sustainable materials, audience engagement and mask making.
Mask Making Workshops
The trained student leaders organised and led free mask making workshops at their respective colleges across the university; using upcycled materials from previous workshops and saving a good amount of craft materials that would have been regarded as wastes, from going into landfill.
Dance Classes:
We put together dance classes run by professional dance tutor, Andrii Tarusov (also a student at the university) and collaborated with the University Dance Team to help students gain basic ballroom dance skills such as Waltz and Tango, which they put into good use at the ball.
Clothes Donation Drive
We took donations of formalwear and accessories from university staff, the local church and external donors. The aim was to give out the donated clothing to our students free of charge to use when coming to the ball.
Clothes Swap
We organised clothes swap events at main campus (front of Library) and at Whitelands College (Whitelands reception). This was to carry on our goal of discouraging fast fashion and encouraging the reuse of fashion materials. Students were able to swap clothes they had for formalwear at the event. Even those who had nothing to swap with were able to take away the clothes and accessories free of charge - saving them money rather than buying new clothing.
The Masquerade Ball
The grand finale, signalling the end of Green Week at the university in grand style and glamour. It was designed to be a unique immersive experience. An evening of celebration, with a red carpet and professional photography, classical music, dance showcases, musical performance and networking opportunities among the students.
More pictures from the event can be found here:
- Photo Album One
- Photo Album Two
Measurable Impacts
The following are some of the measurable impacts from this initiative:
- We engaged over 500 students throughout all the deliverables of this initiative
- We saved about 100lbs (pounds) of clothing from going into landfill through the mask workshops and the clothes swap events, further slowing down the patronage of fast fashion
- We saved students an estimated £2500 in potential fashion cost through the clothes swap.
- Equipped approximately 80 students with ballroom dance skills which would remain useful to them beyond the ball
- Gave opportunity to 28 students to showcase their talents and skills through leading on the mask workshops, event photography, hosting, dance showcase and music performances.
What happens Next?
Through the success of the mask workshops, we have inspired a new set of students to take on innovative sustainability initiatives. We sought donation of masks from students after the Masquerade Ball and those collected masks will now be converted into a body of art in a sustainable art show by some of the recently inspired students.
Similarly, part of the clothing left uncollected from the clothes swap will be donated to the University’s Dress for Success initiative. The remaining clothing that does not fit for this purpose will thereafter be donated to a local charity shop.
With gratitude,
Joshua Kayode, RSU President.