NEW YORK -- Pouting models -- including a Cornell student -- and live music mixed it up at the W Hotel in Manhattan May 1 as Cornell Design League and Harvard's Veritas Records performed to raise money and awareness for thyroid cancer. The models were showing off original designs by 40 Cornell students before a packed house of 300.

The event was the New York City debut of the Cornell Design League (CDL), formed in 1984, which has produced a fashion show on the Ithaca campus for 21 years. The designs (a slightly reworked selection from the Ithaca show) were a mix of modernized classics and edgy club wear, showcased to pulsating music. The audience included representatives from the fashion industry, friends and family and New York City-based alumni. The show was held as a fund-raiser for ThyCa: Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Association. More than $30,000 was raised.

Megan Cass, textiles and apparel '05, CDL vice president of events, said the show was an effort to better expose students' work to the fashion industry. "Unlike Parsons and FIT and other design schools, we don't have the luxury of being in the center of the fashion Mecca," said Cass, who worked on production, staging and lighting with members of Veritas Records.

The Cornell model, not a professional, was Erika Ondrasek, Agriculture and Life Sciences '05, who has participated in the Ithaca CDL show for the past three years.