Is Studying Fashion Relevant?

VCUarts has offered great opportunities to connect with alumni. This was their Fashion Futures event where we heard from a panel of industry experts. Madden Cook (left) and I were thrilled to be able to attend and took away relevant and helpful information!

When I tell people about how I have a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Merchandising sometimes I receive funny or confused looks. However, more commonly, people just simply don’t understand what studying Fashion Merchandising entails. That is ok! I have little to no knowledge about what an Engineering major studies! However, it’s necessary to understand that people have their own specialties and expertise. When we are able to combine our fields of study this makes our world so diverse, intelligent, and knowledgeable about virtually anything and everything.

Fashion Merchandising looks at the fashion industry from a business perspective. I have learned about branding, buying, forecasting, history, line development, entrepreneurship, marketing, and more. After creating seemingly endless PowerPoints and research papers I can confidently say that I have useful knowledge about the fashion industry. I know that a lot of knowledge comes from first-hand experience but now I have a solid foundation to build off of and I am excited to further my learning outside of the classroom.

Fashion is something that everyone interacts with whether you are consciously doing it or not. People often say to me “I know nothing about fashion” or “I don’t have a style” which always makes me smile because it’s untrue! If you purchase clothing whether it’s at a Walmart or a mall, you are interacting with the fashion industry. Taking the conscious approach to studying and viewing the fashion industry has been eye opening. With my background knowledge I am identifying the strategies that brands use and able to connect the dots from my classes to the real world.