Alarmed by the lack of a fashion related space on Amador Valley’s campus, juniors Samaira Mehta (‘24), Simran Khemlani (‘24), Ritika Gupta (‘24), and Sharanya Javli (‘24) joined creative forces to establish the Flair Magazine.

The goal of the magazine: to produce fashion related content with video, photography, podcasts and articles through the establishment of the AVHS Fashion Club.

“Creating the Fashion Club was about having a space where we could do something with our interests, rather than just having it be a hobby or something that we passively consume. I wanted to actively create, and that’s where the Flair Magazine came in because it provides an opportunity for all of us to create something with our love for fashion,” Mehta said.

Meet the team

With backgrounds in journalism, art, and fashion, each of the girls brings a unique skill set to fulfill their respective roles and responsibilities within the magazine.

President and Editor of Journalism, Mehta is an avid consumer of all things fashion related. Outside of school, she runs a handmade clothing business specializing in sustainable and size-inclusive pieces.

“Fashion is how you meet other people before you speak with them, and on a personal level, it’s how you get to know yourself. It’s how you cultivate yourself and your self-expression. It’s also a really important part of your self identity, getting to know other peoples’ identities and just another part of visual personality,” Mehta said.

Vice-President and Editor of Editorials, Khemlani works as a teen Nordstrom Program Ambassador learning about marketing and the fashion industry. Khemlani’s world revolves around art and creativity as she turns to daily life to inspire her artistic endeavors.

“Art is my life. It’s generally the only thing I find solitude in, so for me, art is kind of like a home. When you furnish a house, you have to make sure it looks nice, you want to make sure you’re in a space that you can enjoy. For me, it’s the same way with anything I do to create,” Khemlani said.

Treasurer and Director of Video and Podcasting, Gupta is a former editor for Amador Valley Journalism and a co-president for the AV Film Club. Her experience in video production and journalism allows her to work with both written and digital media.

“A majority of my work from last year was in Arts & Entertainment because I enjoyed writing in that area. Even after last year, I continued to write articles for different programs and I was a part of the publicity teams for other events. I’m also a part of the video production class this year, and I’m much more video oriented now,” Gupta said.

Secretary and Director of Styling, Javli has used fashion to boost her self confidence. In her free time, she creates videos for her personal fashion account, designs crochet tops, and visualizes future outfit ideas.

“To me, fashion is a huge thing for confidence. Before, I wasn’t a big public speaker and socially, I was a bit more reserved, but after I started dressing better, I felt more confident and more beautiful,” Javli said. “I’m always sketching outfits. I feel like putting together outfits is such a calming and amazing process. You’re putting together different things and it really is art at the end of the day.”

Creating the club

Meeting through a mutual friend in their sophomore year, Khemlani and Mehta hit it off immediately through their shared love of fashion. Knowing they wanted to manifest their interests into a physical product, the two decided to create the first Amador fashion club.

“I didn’t even know where to start, but when I met Sam (Mehta), she brought up the idea and I was like, ‘I am so down and I have been thinking about this for so long,’ so we just decided to do it. Creating the club was fun because it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like something that I would spend my free time on,” Khemlani said.

With their paperwork submitted, the duo searched for a signature look they could use to represent their new club. After hours of scrolling on Pinterest, they coined a tan and black minimalist color palette with an eight-ball as their official logo.

“One of the things we wanted to do was make the logo so that it wasn’t too feminine or too masculine. We wanted something that felt inclusive, so that no one would feel left out or feel like they couldn’t join the club,” Mehta said. “We had a few black and white logo ideas that were set in a circle, very much like a typical logo that just said our name. They said either ‘Flair’ or ‘Flair Magazine.’ We initially had very corporate ideas.”

To fulfill the remaining club leadership roles, Mehta and Khemlani required a treasurer and secretary, who they found in Gupta and Javli respectively. Needing a final addition to their team, the girls found their advisor in Julia Ford, the home economics teacher with an extra classroom and a surplus of sewing supplies. 

“Ms. Ford has a lot of extra fabric just laying around and a whole extra classroom that she doesn’t use that we can use for meetings, photo shoots and whatever else we may need. She doesn’t advise any other clubs, so she had enough bandwidth and resources to give us the attention we needed,” Mehta said.

Making the magazine

When in action, the club works to create. While constructing their digital magazine, Mehta looked for website outlines that would best showcase the club’s future work and highlight their progress. Covering three main categories, the magazine features an editorial section, an articles page, and a video and podcasting branch.

“After many, many iterations of the website, I’ve probably made at least four websites on four different website builders, but we finally settled on Squarespace. There’s space for all of the different components of our magazine to allow an area to create for everyone,” Mehta said.

Providing a safe space for fashion content creators, the club promotes creativity and collaboration among all members. Out of the box ideas are encouraged and imagination plays a key factor in working with others on the magazine. 

“I’m super open to collaborating and I love to work with other creatives because I think that once we all come together, collaborating is just the best part of the process. The end outcome is not as rewarding as going through the motions and creating in the moment,” Khemlani said.

From a local to an international lens, the works of media published in Flair Magazine intend to cover significant current events in the fashion world. As the magazine continues to expand, the girls hope to express their love of fashion, creativity, and self expression through the community they foster and the content they produce.

“We are going to show that we are crazy, wild, and flamboyant, but also very smart and educated people. We’re having fun, and I think we have to show that through what we produce,” Khemlani said. “I want to make sure that everything looks great. Actually, I don’t want everything to look great. It has to be perfect, it has to be spectacular, and it has to be beyond spectacular into fantabulous and fantistic. Fantistic isn’t even a word. You have to be blown away.”