Fine Arts 

A crowd gathers under a huge white tent around a stage waiting for the rock band to start. When they begin playing, the energy is high with everyone dancing and singing along – but this isn’t ACL it’s just ISAS. 

The ISAS festival (Independent Schools Association of the Southwest Festival) began in 1967, when the Casady School hosted choirs from Wichita Collegiate and Holland Hall to perform. ISAS has since grown into an annual regional arts festival with over 40 participating schools. This festival highlights values of collaboration over competition and encouragement of creativity. “It has inspired students, strengthened arts programs, and fostered mutual appreciation among schools, gaining stature and popularity over the years,” according to the ISAS Arts Festival website.

St. Andrew’s students and teachers returned to ISAS this April for the first time since hosting it in 2024. This year the festival was hosted by St. Mark’s, so St. Andrew’s students packed up their work and made their way up to Dallas. 

Immediately, the amount of art was impressive. Their athletic center gym was filled with 3D and 2D art and photography. The center was lined with tables crowded with colorful pottery, jewelry, woodwork, and even wigs. Around the table were rows of boards pinned with impressive paintings and photos of  a range of subjects from “Stranger Things” characters to cars. St. Andrew’s students got a chance to have their work critiqued by professionals and to show off their hard work from this school year. “I like how I could see a difference in style of art from certain schools,” Senior Leena Abdallah comments. “It was nice to see so many different forms of art in one place.”

Outside the athletic center, the rock band and jazz band tent was set up in a field with constant performances from various schools. St. Andrew’s students brightened the stage and brought the energy in the crowd for their 10am performance on Friday, making you forget that you woke up a couple hours earlier with their performances of “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan and “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers.

In the classrooms, students were performing their solos on different instruments and throughout the other buildings acting performances were being performed. St. Andrew’s theater got a chance to showcase a shortened version of their fall play “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” to a wider audience. St. Andrew’s Senior Trevi Reed, who acted in the play, notes that “The audience was very good … everyone was laughing and was very loud. I was really proud of our last performance.” Additionally, we got the opportunity to see other schools perform. A favorite of many was the St. Mark’s and Hockaday improv show, which made many students want St. Andrew’s to start their own improv class.

In the chapel, the St. Andrew’s choirs performed their “Songs of Light and Hope,” which drew in a big audience. Additionally, the St. Andrew’s musical theater department got to adlib “The Addam’s Family,” which St. Andrew’s Senior Jules Goldman who performed as the character “Uncle Fester” remarked, “The audience really loved it which is always a great feeling.”

In another tent outside, a coffeehouse was held throughout the day, hosted by the different schools attending. People got a chance to display their talent from original songs to Broadway covers. St. Andrew’s featured many great performances such as Seniors Bo Aycock and Julia Milliken covering a Chris Stapleton song to Senior Harrison Parker and Sophomore Eva Lew performing a duet of “The Longest Goodbye" by Role Model and Laufey. 

Inside the science wing was the film theater. We got the chance to watch films from different schools throughout the day along with the ones from St. Andrew’s. SAS Senior Emily Wallingford showcased one of the many impressive films from St. Andrew’s called Like We Always Do, about a high school friend group going through the tension of leaving post graduation. Wallingford comments that seeing the films from other schools “inspired me to be a better filmmaker because they were so creative.” St. Mark’s also has a planetarium which featured a guest film called Resolution: A Cinephonic Rhapsody for the Soul directed by Scott Berman featuring different artist’s animation to an album by The Polyphonic Spree playing overhead on a domed ceiling screen. It was an impressive and unique experience, and many students were glad that they got to see it. 

If St. Andrew’s students get the opportunity to participate in the event in the future, they should jump on the chance to get to go. It is a great way to see creativity in all forms, meet new people, and work on your own artistic ability. “I definitely recommend SAS students to attend in the future,” Wallingford adds, “I never regret going.”

On the first Monday of May, hundreds of people turn on their televisions to livestream the infamous Met Gala. The Metropolitan museum in New York City fills its hal ls with celebrities decked out head to toe in glamorous makeup and extravagant outfits. Everyone floods social media to rate outfits, post the red carpet photos, and review the interviews famously hosted by the beloved Emma Chamberlain. People typically assume this gala is just a party for celebrities to show off their wealth; however, this event is actually a fundraiser for the Met’s day-to-day expenses required to keep the departments running, such as salaries, utilities, and office supplies, the process of obtaining new items for a collection, such as purchasing artworks or historical artifacts, and costs associated with organizing and displaying collections to the public. While the glamour and celebrity presence often steal the spotlight, understanding the deeper purpose of the Met Gala reveals why it remains such a significant cultural event. 

Past themes have consisted of “Heavenly Bodies,” “Gilded Glamour,” and “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” and this year the Gala takes a full new concept to represent the new department at the museum: Costume Art - celebrating the Costume Institute exhibition. According to the Met website, “The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present."

There are celebrities known as the Queen or King of the Met Gala, such as Zendaya, Blake Lively, and Colman Domingo, due to their repeated success of both the theme and having the best outfits, leaving them to be fan favorites. St Andrew’s senior, Julia Millikin, believes Kim Kardashian's Marilyn Monroe outfit was one of the best Met Gala outfits she’s seen because she was wearing Monroe’s real dress. She says “Everyone was super interested in it because she included a piece of history into what she wears.” These iconic fashion choices highlight how the Met Gala both reflects and responds to evolving trends within the global fashion industry. 

As people try to predict what will be worn to this year's Met Gala, you have to look back at the fashion trends from this year seen at New York and Paris Fashion week. Recent designers have been going above and beyond using their creativity to create art unique to this day and age as they try to shut down the backlash from the critics, the New York Times reports that, “Most everyone has been complaining about how beige, bland and boring Big Fashion has become. Especially at the luxury-conglomerate-run level, where heritage brands like Dior, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès and Saint Laurent command the attention at Paris Fashion Week. It’s nearly impossible to compete with their well-oiled and increasingly homogenous branding machines.” In a New York Times review of Paris Fashion Week, “What Would it Take for Fashion to Shock You?”writers highlighted recent “shock” moments in fashion, like how designer Hardoka turned a Persian rug into a skirt, and Chanel made their models walk down runways with baseball-sized pearls in their mouths. It is clear that designers are stepping out of the box, building the suspense for the outfits at the 2026 Met Gala. 

This year the Gala is being co-chaired by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour. The members of the Gala Host Committee are co-chaired by Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz and includes Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Gwendoline Christie, Alex Consani, Misty Copeland, Elizabeth Debicki, Lena Dunham, Paloma Elsesser, LISA, Chloe Malle, Sam Smith, Teyana Taylor, Lauren Wasser, Anna Weyant, A’ja Wilson, and Yseult. As they prepare for this event they hope to see celebrities drawing inspiration from art history, including styles like Baroque, Surrealism, and Impressionism. They want the guests to view their outfits as pieces of art rather than black-tie attire. This theme encourages everyone to treat their body as a blank canvas and to fully become a work of art showcased at the museum. 

In The Arts Newspaper article about the new costume gallery at the Met, Andrew Bolton, the head curator of Costume Institute from the Met, states “It will be transformative for our department, but I also think it’s going to be transformative to fashion more generally—the fact that an art museum like the Met is actually giving a central location to fashion.”