On most evenings, Terman Fountain is dotted with passersby or students stretched out on the surrounding benches. On Sunday night, it transformed into a runway for the first time. Student designer Dominique Schleider ’26 staged “Weather Any Storm,” a fashion show built into the fountain itself, with models walking a custom pathway through the water.
Around Terman, approximately 230 guests watched from benches set level with the runway. The production was a year in the making, dating back to when Schleider studied fashion abroad in Milan at Istituto Marangoni during winter and spring quarter last year. The idea took shape on a visit back to Stanford, when classmates kept asking Schleider what Milan had been like.
“I decided there and then that I wanted to do a collection and present it and have something that was fully my own: the clothes, the set, everything,” Schleider said.
The show’s title, “Weather Any Storm,” carries a deliberate double meaning. Schleider’s collection was inspired by the rain she encountered in Milan, but she resisted making conventional rainwear. “Rainwear is not very versatile. It kind of feels very single use,” she said.
So Schleider set out to blend the silhouette of rainwear with suiting fabric, producing a series of hooded suits. “It’s kind of like going from protecting yourself in the rain to embracing it,” Schleider said of the collection’s symbolism, “That’s why there’s a lot of flowy fabrics.” The progression was visible on the runway: early garments included a shiny suit, while later pieces featured flowing silk chiffon.
Schleider’s vision also extended to the water itself. After getting permission from Stanford Land, Buildings & Real Estate, Schleider commissioned custom nozzles to change how the fountain’s sprinklers released water, reshaping the flow so it interacted with the models as they walked behind and then through the fountain along a pathway she built.
“She’s curated everything, down to the way she zip-tied the umbrellas to the frame,” said Alexandra Fernandez ’26, an environmental systems engineering major and a close friend of Schleider’s. In addition to the umbrella wall, clusters of white parasols were scattered throughout the seating area and guests sat at bench level to view the show with full immersion. Concerned that wind might disturb the set, Schleider’s friends even fill individual sandbags to anchor each umbrella bundle and the frame.
Schleider approached Arbor Live, the campus sound production company that helped execute the show, over the previous summer with the concept. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a fashion show in Terman Fountain before,” said Molly Miller ’26, an Arbor Live student director. “It was an original idea.” Arbor Live had built stages in the fountain for other events that quarter, so the team adapted what it had learned to bring the designer’s plans to life. “It was all just her vision,” Miller said. “We just helped her execute it.”
Schleider designed the collection herself, building prototypes by hand — she made four versions of one long black dress alone. She credited a tailor in Milan and costume instructors connected to her through her advisor at Stanford’s costume shop with helping her finalize the pieces.
Music was central to the experience. Schleider pointed to classic rock as an influence on how she designs more broadly, citing The Beatles as having inspired one collarless suit in the lineup. Ultimately, Schleider wanted her models “to have a beat to walk to,” so she settled on dance music with a streak of classic rock. She enlisted her freshman year roommate, Zion Asemota ’26, to help mix the soundtrack, which Schleider said was challenging due to the unconventional song pairings.
The show was assembled by a wide circle of helpers who had built the set, mixed the music, sewed the garments and lettered the name cards. Aaron Zhang ’27, another design major and a friend of Schleider’s from a typography class, spent an entire day lettering names — in a graffiti style to match the “Weather Any Storm” theme — on name cards set out on the seats and on small umbrellas mounted with dowels to fill the gaps in the larger wall. Schleider handed him a list of names and told him to go for it. The idea, Zhang said, was that each helper would find their name and take their umbrella home afterward.
Not everything went according to plan. Schleider had originally intended for models to descend a staircase, but found it too dark. She pivoted to a longer walkway; before the entrances, the models were wrapped in plastic to avoid getting wet. “I care more about how they feel and how the audience experiences it than us being in silly little trash bags,” Schleider said. “At the end of the day, you do what you can with what you got.”
The cast came from all over the world — Turkey, Brazil, London and the United States. “It’s my friends, and it’s people that I stopped on the street,” Schleider said.
The show opened with Jeanette Smith-Laws, director of operations and student unions in the assistant vice provost’s office, whom Schleider met while arranging the space. “I just said, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so fabulous. Can you please model in my show?'” Schleider said, adding that Smith-Laws had been a steady supporter throughout. “It could literally not be opened by anyone other than her.”
As the show ended, the team members came up to the umbrella wall. One by one, they searched the wall for the small umbrellas marked with their names, found them and took them down. As they did, others photographed them, the helpers pausing at the wall while cameras turned toward them, the same way they had toward the models minutes before.
