For some good reason, many younger people who have an interest in fashion seem to approach me regarding the fashion industry and advice towards receiving an education in fashion. To my surprise, I always have this great revelation of how, what, and where people should start their careers in fashion. So I decided to continue My Mentor Moments that I originally started towards the beginning of this blog and turn it into a series entitled Mentor Moment Mondays for things that helped me during my career to help others towards their education and professional goals. I’ll also include any cool fashion degree programs that I come across that you may want to pursue! I may not be able to answer everything regarding the industry (by no means am I professional at all), but if anyone has a question, feel free to write it in the comments and I’ll try to get to you the following week! (I’ll try and do this series twice a month-or even more depending on how much info I can remember!)
Recently, a lovely young woman named Noel, who I have watched blossom over the years, asked me about advice about majoring in Fashion Business and if it was practical or not. Here are some key highlights from our dialogue that we had:
- Get a degree that compliments your fashion aspirations. For example I have a business economic degree and shortly after received a degree in Fashion Merchandising Management (not only will a fashion degree get you a job in fashion, but your technical degree will allow you to qualify for non-related jobs in fashion such as Marketing, Communications, etc while you wait for your dream job)
- Look for programs within your college that have partnerships with other schools to shorten your time in school and receive multiple degrees (My program was a 3+1 program: 3 years of Business Economics and 1 year of Fashion Merchandise Management to=2 degrees)
- Don’t let other people discourage you from accomplishing your goals! Instead connect with others who are in your field to understand their path and how they got there.
Hopefully I will be able to help as much as I can through my experience. We’re all still on the path to greatness (including me!) Don’t give up!
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I went back to school for fashion merchandising/management…I always say academic fashion is very different from being in the industry…but it gives you that edge.
it definitely is Tinu! Sometimes you take a class in an area of fashion that is such a perfect fit for you and then when you get to the industry the job in that field doesn’t exist or you have to go to so many levels of promotions to get there unfortunately.