Fashion Consort News Bytes

Much like retail has had to evolve to meet the demands of shopping across physical and digital channels, education is also being forced to evolve. Contemporary students require new ways of learning, both in terms of content structure and delivery, that build more on the shifts in media than traditional education--leaving academic institutions largely unable to meet demands without reliance on external partnerships with ed-tech companies. 

The current university model is heavily reliant on an in-person, on campus experience. Not only is this how it’s “been done” for more than a century, it also provides institutions with multiplicitous profit centers from cafeterias, dorms, sports events and more. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, universities weren’t able to bring students on campus, meaning profit was no longer coming from these sources--and in fact, had become a liability in the form of empty classrooms and dorms. It is no wonder that these institution’s first priority then was to get students back in person. These preparations began in earnest once a shift to online learning was facilitated in spring 2020. By fall 2021, most universities were back open for business despite the Delta variant. 

In all of this, the stark contrast was that university development over the past 50 years was largely focused on building new buildings and expanding the campus footprint, while the rest of the world was turning more digital. Universities were putting very little thought (and budgets) into the development of new digital learning technologies, modalities and support systems, including the purchase of video equipment, recording studios and even digital pedagogy.

For the full transcript, visit: FCNewsBytes.com

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In a recent New York Magazine article, author William Deresiewicz stated, “For educational institutions, master’s programs are cash cows since their students get far less financial aid than undergraduates. For students, the master’s program responds to a specific need: American workers are competing more and more with those around the world, and the more college graduates there are, the more you need to find a way to distinguish yourself from the mass.”

This is particularly true when it comes to vocational studies, such as fashion, where master’s programs have proliferated from a handful across the U.S., to a handful of offerings from hundreds of universities. For example, Parsons School of Design in New York City now offers twenty master’s programs, including MFAs, MAs, MSs and MPSs. The MPS, or Masters of Professional Studies, is a relatively new moniker that is given to vocation-specific education, such as Fashion Management. It isn’t an MBA, in that it lacks the focus on finances and statistics, and it’s focus is on one industry only--fashion. 

The cost of these programs, especially by high-profile universities from Columbia to RISD, are very high, often over $50,000 per year. And that adds up in a 2 or 3 year program. And while data suggests that students who graduate with a masters do make more than their counterparts, these high costs make a graduate program very risky, saddling students with debt that may take years to pay off.

For the full transcript, visit: FCNewsBytes.com

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Joshua Williams: Each month on NewsBytes, we feature a fashion brand that approaches business differently and innovatively or operates outside of the main fashion systems and capitals. I'm with Sass Brown, an expert in ethical fashion, sustainability and craftsmanship. She is the former Dean of Art and Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the founding Dean at Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation.

Joshua Williams: Hello, Sass. Who are we featuring this month? 

Ah, Re;code, based in Korea. Can you tell us a little bit about them and what makes them unique. 

Sass Brown: Yeah, they are a really fabulous company. And they work effectively with upcycled materials, revalued, discarded, and unused materials. 

They're part of a larger conglomerate called Kolon Industries. They're a small subsidiary of it. And so they utilize the dead stock and the wasted materials from the other labels that are produced under the same umbrella company. So they use dead stock from their own warehouse. They use military waste. They use industrial waste, things like car seat covers and car airbags and seat belts and things like that. So, they do have some quite unique sources for their materials. 

And they do use also post-consumer, or finished garments anyway. So they dismantle them and reconstruct and redesign them. You can see it quite clearly when you look at their designs. You'll often see half a jacket front, which is inside out, or, you see the pocket details or a sweater that's been applicated on top of a sweater up front that's been appliqued on top of a shirt, for example. So you can see the reconstruction quite clearly in their aesthetic. 

Joshua Williams: How driven are they by a particular visual aesthetic or do they let the waste, the consumer waste that you're talking about sort of drive what that vision becomes? 

Sass Brown: I think it's a bit of both.

They have a very distinct aesthetic. You can pretty much tell a Re;code piece. They have a way of deconstructing and reconstructing their garments that's quite specific and quite unique and various aesthetically pleasing.

For the full transcript, visit: FCNewsBytes.com

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In the US, the GI Bill was passed to help World War II veterans acclimate back into civilian life. One of the key components of this bill was to provide servicemen with access to an affordable college education. This had the effect of greatly increasing the amount of people with a college degree from the 1950s on, ultimately shifting education from a privilege of the rich, to a rite of passage for most Americans. And this access to education had the effect of increasing the middle class, while also shifting the economy from blue collar to white collar jobs. 

However, as the economy shifted away from the factory to the office in the 1970s and 80s, blue collar jobs also became less desirable. This required companies to offshore their factories--and had the added benefit of cheaper labor, with less governmental regulation. By the 1990s, this meant that most fashion related production--textiles and apparel--no longer happened in the U.S. or in Europe; it had shifted primarily to China and India and then further into southeast Asia. This shift in production brought a wave of money to these countries, effectively shifting their economies and facilitating the birth of their own middle classes, as well as the fortunes of many. 

In time, the new business owners of China and India and their children and grandchildren became the fastest growing consumer segment in the world. Not only were they buying more things, they were also going to college in higher numbers. For those that could afford it, attending top schools in London, Paris and New York--especially to study fashion--was the primary objective. These schools were seen as the penultimate in design and business education--and offered well-known brand names on resumes. 

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Due to the specialized nature of retail and fashion, training “on the job” has always been an integral part of the industry. In some cases, this learning was informal, particularly in family run businesses, but it was also formal through apprenticeships, where young people were hired to learn a trade at an atelier with the goal for them to become full-time employees. These individual apprenticeships also led to internal certification programs--especially at larger retailers--wherein this learning could be provided at scale, albeit still at a local level. For example, Neiman Marcus’ training program in Dallas or Macy’s training program in New York City. However, as fashion became more corporatized and globalized, these informal and formal types of learning largely disappeared, or shifted to an HR function, leaving a gap in the employee training process.

Concurrent with the shift of fashion education into degree-focused programs was the growth of internships, wherein companies would collaborate with academic institutions to hire non-paid workers to do low level jobs--with the promise that students would get real-world experience and training, and possibly a job at the end of their internship. In theory, this system seemed to benefit all students, especially if an internship was built into a program. But in practice, internships have largely favored the economically advantaged, has normalized unpaid work, and often doesn’t lead to a full time job.  

First, internships have largely favored the economically advantaged for a few reasons. One, students who have more economic means have a stronger network--often through their parents--to access internships in general, and better internships more specifically. Two, because internships are tied to credits (as a way to legalize unpaid work), students are essentially paying for their own internship. So students must make a decision between paying for an internship, or paying for another elective, not to increase their base tuition. Those with economic means can more easily do both. And three, students often must work in order to pay for their college experience. Doing an internship on top of school and a paying job is almost impossible. And it’s rare that schools will allow a paid job to count as an internship--and if they do, then students are essentially paying to work their own job and not benefitting from additional courses in their major. On top of this, many students will choose schools in areas such as New York City or London to study, in order to access internships. The cost of living and studying in these areas is substantially more than at local universities. The net outcome is that students with means have more opportunities for internships and then jobs upon graduation. And this means that the funnel of incoming employees doesn’t match the diversity of the student population, thus perpetuating systemic racism within the retail and fashion industries.

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Fashion as an academic discipline is relatively new. It’s not to say that people haven’t been researching the intersection of clothing and economics, clothing and psychology, or clothing and culture--to name a few--for quite some time, rather that it hasn't been taken seriously as its own discipline. However, with formalization of fashion as a discipline within the academy, and the growth in graduate level programs, there has been a surge of fashion-specific research both by faculty and students. 

And because this research isn’t necessarily tied to a company’s success--meaning that it’s not research being done as part of one’s job, or in service of a client--this has provided more opportunity to research without a required or expected outcome. In short, it has allowed for more direct critique of the fashion system. It’s no surprise then, that a correlation can be drawn between the growth of fashion research and a growth of interest in subjects such as sustainability, human rights and EISJ. These topics are consistently in the top five when it comes to student research. 

Over time, these areas of academic focus have shifted from the institution to the industry, for two reasons: 1) students are graduating with these topics being front and center in their learning and 2) the more educated people become, the more they demand change from companies. However, this process has been slow and highlights the lack of direct collaboration between academia and industry.

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Each month Sass Brown, an expert in ethical fashion, sustainability and craftsmanship, shares a fashion brand that approaches business differently and innovatively or operates outside of the main fashion systems and capitals. Sass is the former Dean of Art and Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the founding Dean at Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation.

Christopher Raeburn is a design-led, London-based womenswear, menswear and accessories fashion brand. Christopher works with certified organic materials, recycled polyester, and a lot of surplus materials, particularly military surplus. According to Sass Brown, Christopher’s aesthetic comes from, “a fascination with military materials and something that he's quoted as saying ‘archeological discoveries.’” 

The brand dates back to about 2009 and Christopher’s first collection, which was fall winter 2010, was made from decommissioned military wool field jackets and nylon parachutes. Sass points out, “that's an aesthetic that has continued throughout the collection, since that day. It's very technically savvy; it's full of utilitarian details.”But it also includes some whimsy, she says.” This combination of whimsy and the utilitarian makes his designs very recognizable on the streets.

For the full transcript, visit: FCNewsBytes.com

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For many years, the onus of educating employees in the fashion industry was primarily that of the employer. Firstly, the industry relied heavily on women and because higher education was not generally available to them, companies had to train them with the skills they needed to do their jobs. Secondly, most fashion companies were family run businesses and relied on local workers, so the training happened naturally on the job. Thirdly, fashion required specialized skills related to merchandising, buying, production and retailing. And because each company had their own approach or style, companies benefited from training employees according to their particular needs. As companies grew, these programs expanded to be more formal, with the likes of Macy’s offering full training programs and certifications. In fact, early fashion schools such as the Fashion Institute of Technology built their two-year certifications on matriculating students into these types of programs. 

While some of these corporate programs persist, their fundamental approach (and need) shifted once fashion education became fully integrated into undergraduate degree programs at universities. The onus for training employees shifted from the employer to the university. To a degree, this helped to provide a more consistent foundation in terms of knowledge and skills. And it provided students with a more 360 degree view of the industry beyond a specific job they were training for, along with better soft skills, such as collaboration and communication. But, it also meant that students were learning less hard skills, creating a chasm between what was learned in college versus what was needed on the job. 

For the full transcript, visit: FCNewsBytes.com

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In the mid-1990s, fashion education became more fully integrated into the academy, allowing students of fashion to receive more than vocational training. Their studies in fashion design or fashion merchandising were now combined with a traditional liberal arts or business education, leading to a bachelor’s or baccalaureate degree. This had the effect of formalizing, even legitimizing, fashion as an academic pursuit and a desired career. And with the burgeoning proliferation of fashion content in the media, especially with Project Runway and blogging, followed by smartphones and social media, colleges and universities were quick to realize the profit potential of offering fashion degree programs.

Shifting a fashion education into a more liberal arts setting requires students to take non-fashion courses such as sciences, mathematics, history and so forth, in order to meet accreditation standards. While this ensures a more well-rounded education, it also means less time to focus on fashion related subjects and skills training. For bachelor-level students, this means taking a series of foundational courses, and perhaps an elective or two, without ever having the chance to deep dive, or gain expertise in any one particular area. The goal then becomes on providing a foundation of knowledge and the ability to think critically--the hallmarks of a liberal arts education-- on which students can build, once they enter the industry. While there is certainly value in this approach, it has also led to a wide chasm between what knowledge and actual skills students graduate with, versus what employers expect of them, or need.

For the full transcript, visit: FCNewsBytes.com

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In the mid-1990s, fashion education became more fully integrated into the academy, allowing students of fashion to receive more than vocational training. Their studies in fashion design or fashion merchandising were now combined with a traditional liberal arts or business education, leading to a bachelor’s or baccalaureate degree. This had the effect of formalizing, even legitimizing, fashion as an academic pursuit and a desired career. And with the burgeoning proliferation of fashion content in the media, especially with Project Runway and blogging, followed by smartphones and social media, colleges and universities were quick to realize the profit potential of offering fashion degree programs.

For the full transcript, visit: FCNewsBytes.com

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