Episode 1: From Corporate to Classroom - Why Fashion Marketing

You're listening to marketing adventure, the hub for business, fashion marketing and other CTE educators who integrate marketing into the learning experience. I'm your host, Jacque' Walker. Each week, I'll cover marketing, education concepts, strategies, tips, trends, frameworks, and other information to equip you to connect your classroom to digital natives while cultivating an engaged learning environment. So come on into the room, where your favorite beverage snacks, and even your cell phone are all welcome.

0:39 And so it begins. This is my first episode here on Marketing EdVenture with Jacque’ Walker. Today, I'm flying solo. And talking about transitioning from corporate America, to the education field, the framework of the fashion marketing program, I taught how you can expand your fashion marketing class into a fashion program and the benefits of a fashion program. You're ready. Come on into the room.

1:08 Hey there, Jacque, with Marketing EdVenture, and I am here to share my story with you. So how did I become a "marketing teacher, a fashion marketing teacher at that? Well, it's a very interesting story, I had tons of years, over 20 years of experience in retail, project management, sales, and working in an IT environment, just so happened that I was looking at being on the same schedule with my children. I'm a single parent. And I had two young children at the time who were in elementary school and intermediate school. And I needed a way to be able to be on their same schedule for holidays, summer breaks, spring break, and all of that, right. And I was working in a very high intensity IT environment. And I was calling for me to work, you know, quite a number of hours more than the 40 hours a week that I had signed up for. And so what I did was started looking at what opportunities were available for me to be on the same schedule. And when I looked into that, and I thought about it I prayed about it and it was revealed to me that teaching would put me on their exact schedule, even though they went to school in a different district than I had actually ended up going into. We still were on the same basic schedule after 20 plus years of being in other industries, I find myself in the education industry. Wow. But I never thought about that. What I brought with me from the professional corporate industry and also from the retail environment, were those skills that were necessary for marketing, business ,fashion because that's where I ultimately ended up being is in a fashion marketing educator’s position, which was perfect because my degree was in fashion merchandising with a minor in business. And it was awesome that I will get an opportunity to influence young girls to enter the field that I had studied. So let's talk about fashion marketing.

3:35 Now when I looked into education, and what I can actually use my degree for, I was very excited to find that there was a fashion program specifically for fashion marketing. So the school that I taught in is a magnet school. And actually it was the first magnet school in the United States Skyline High School. We also know it is Skyline Career Development Center, we had over 20 clusters, as we used to call them and fashion was one of them. Our fashion program consisted of fashion design, and fashion marketing. I was able to obtain the position of fashion marketing, and it's a four year program. All of our magnet programs are four year programs. So they start from 9th grade to 12th. Now you may think, “What in the world can someone teach for four years in fashion?” Well, that was a lot. I know that districts and curriculum makers would have you think that a one semester course is great and enough for anyone who wants to know about the business side of fashion, or they think that maybe a year. So I know that in Texas, our fashion marketing class used to be one year but now it's been reduced down to one semester. And I tell you that a lot of people look at design as the fashion course, right. And that's true that design does get a lot of attention, because, hey, you have to have someone to design the clothes in order for them to even be anything to market, right. However, there is a whole business behind the fashion industry that goes beyond design. So let's talk about that. My coursework that I taught, and the structure of my program actually started with 9th grade, who took the Entrepreneurship class. Then from 10th through 12th, those were dual credit students, who actually took classes from the local community college, Dallas Colleges. And those classes were correlated with the Texas classes. For instance, the first semester of the sophomore class was Fashion Marketing. And that correlated with Intro to Fashion with the college course. And then the second semester class was Advertising, the high school curriculum Advertising, which correlated with Fashion Advertising, the college course. So the junior level courses were Advanced Marketing, which was equivalent to the Principles of Marketing at the college level. And the Practicum in Marketing, which was equivalent to the Fashion Trends course in college, because Fashion Trends was a higher level course. So we were able to connect that to the Practicum in Marketing, since that's generally reserved for junior and senior level classes. And then, for the seniors, they had Extended Marketing, which was full year, and that correlated to the Basic Color Theory class and the Visual Merchandising class, which were both high level classes for the college. So that's the way that my program was set up. As you can see, when you connect your classroom to a college program, you are able to correlate those courses to the classes for the high school state of standards. Okay?

7:11 Now, if you were to look at like that one semester Fashion Marketing course that Texas has, for instance, I don't know about other states, but I can tell you about Texas, it really doesn't take a deep dive into the fashion industry and is really just a surface level. And when you have students who are really eager to learn about fashion, and learn about it, either, whether it's design, or whether it's marketing, in my case, marketing, then you know, you want to set up an environment where they're able to really get to learn about the industry, and see what careers and opportunities are out there for them. Oh, my class, the theory focused on the four levels of the fashion industry, we covered from the primary level all the way to the auxiliary level. So they learned the basic to advanced concepts about the industry. Some of the things that the students learned about were fashion theory, principles and elements of design, at the fashion cycle, fashion centers, the different trade centers all over the world. We mainly focused on the Dallas market, though, since this is where we're located, they also got to learn about the different levels of fashion from the different categories of fashion. Of course, color theory, as I mentioned before, they learned about fabrics, not only just, you know, the fabric types, but the weaves the different ways that the fabric has, we studied body types, because for the different positions or careers that one may take in fashion, you need to understand the body. Okay, so those were some of the theory things that we focused on.

8:50 But then we were also very project oriented. Those classes can have projects that are just like short term projects to long duration, which require in depth research. And then of course, from the project, we're doing a demonstration of learning. The project allows them to collaborate, sometimes they have individual projects. Other times and most times, the projects are two or more people. So it's a collaborative environment. And the project is to serve as not only a project grade but you can also build in an assessment in that because they are learning concepts and they're learning theories and things of that nature. So you're able to take a part of the project and let that count as an assessment for me. I like for the oral presentation part of the project to be one assessment because you're assessing them on their oral presentation skills. And then sometimes say like if it was a big project, maybe even like for competition at DECA, then the executive summary because serve as assessment because then you just grade them on all the different portions of the executive summary because they had the pull that in front issue from the whole report or project that they were doing.

10:05 Hey, EdVenturous Educator, I just want to take a quick break to ask, is this your first time teaching fashion marketing? Or do you need a boost in your curriculum, but look no further, I have the Ultimate Fashion Marketing Class Bundle. It’s packed with 4 vibrant presentations, fun and engaging activities, quizzes, and 4 major projects for an immersive semester of fashion exploration. And it comes with the pacing guide for an 18 week semester. Additionally, each assignment has detailed student instructions, and suggested pacing times so that you can tailor the time frame to fit your teaching schedule. For more information about this must have bundle, go to marketingedventure.com and search for the Ultimate Fashion Marketing Class Bundle, or simply click the link in the show notes. Now back to the show.

11:04 As with any program, you're going to want to have a lab so like your cosmetology kids have a lab where they do hair. Your transportation, kids have a lab where they work on cars. So our fashion class also had a lab. And of course, the fashion design side, the lab would be where the sewing machines are so they can create their garments. Well, in our fashion marketing class, we had labs so that we can practice the business side of fashion marketing. So we had a retail store that we operate, that gives the kids an opportunity to practice their selling skills, their visual merchandising skills, engagement skills. So that was one of our labs, a very big one. We also practiced with window displays. So we have windows in which the kids will create displays based on various themes that we may have been studying for fashion or based on a project that they're doing. Also, our closets served as a lab, because with any type of fashion environment, a store, a company, or a shop, or what whatever you're doing, even with a visual merchandising department, you know, you have to have a closet that is organized has all the tools and the resources that you need. So our closets were one of the labs that we had as well. And then we have visual resources. So we had an area of our room that we created as a lab area, where it contained all of our resources that we needed for projects that are related to fashion marketing, any kind of build outs that we're doing in the classroom or anywhere else. So you have your labs, and those are things that are necessary as a part of your program, that you can have that hands on opportunity with the students for them to demonstrate their understanding, some skills and knowledge that you are teaching, and also for them to practice.

13:07 Now I know when people think about fashion and any type of event, the first thing that pops up to your mind is a fashion show. And of course, we have fashion shows every single year. Now beyond the fashion show, there are other things that we were able to do to showcase the students talents, an opportunity for them to demonstrate their learning things such as creating a fashion profile that consisted of learning somebody's facial shape, learning somebody's body type, and then doing a color analysis on them. And you put that together in a profile. And so we did that for students. We did it for teachers, we did it for an open house, we did it for a variety of others who were not in our classroom. So they learned the skill. And then they demonstrated it with other people. So that was another fashion event that we would host throughout the year just depending on what time of the year it was, or you know, what we were trying to do to accomplish something. Also we had showcases. We had times when we could take our items into the lunch room area where there was a spot for doing displays and things of that nature. And there was a major window display unit in the front of our school that we were able to have as an opportunity to showcase work from both design and fashion marketing. We also sponsored lunch series. So there's all kinds of events that you can do with fashion that extends beyond a one semester class or a one year class. But we did lunch series where we're teaching how to dress on a budget. You know, we were demonstrating how to wear your school uniform in a fashionable way. There were also Dress for Success sessions, and then just hosting events after school, like our open house that would allow middle schoolers to come in and have an opportunity to learn with fashion is all about to see if there was something they were interested in applying for and becoming a student of our magnet program. Just to round out this session on why fashion marketing, of course, I've given you a lot of things to consider. If you would like to have a fashion marketing program in your school, these are just some things just touch the surface of some things that you can sit down with your administration, your counselors and talk about, “I would really like to extend my program, or create a program that is multiple years.” Maybe it won't be a four year program. Maybe it'll start off as being a two year program, where you can do introductory work with your freshmen, and your sophomores and by the time those sophomores become juniors, maybe you'll be able to talk the administration into extending it into a four year program. But at least you have some ideas of how you can use the courses for your state to translate them into a fashion marketing program.

16:05 Now to round it all out, of course, we have a CTSO that the students participate in. So for me, because I'm a full marketing education teacher, DECA was the program that I actually was an advisor for. And so the students were able to participate in a variety of events. For DECA , we initially started out and I will tell you, this is a funny story. We initially started out with my first year of teaching, just doing the apparel and accessories in the retail individual events, me not knowing anything about DECA , I was like, Okay, well, let's let the students do that. And it quickly became apparent to meet that we needed to really spread our wealth of knowledge and, and so after that first year competition, I was like, We will not just compete into events, we will look at the written projects to see what it is that we could do, and have a fashion influence on those projects. And then of course, there was also the fashion promotion plan, which I had no knowledge of, that they could have done. But I think the whole thing is if you let a student choose what they want to do, they're going to try to take the easy way out and just do a test in a roleplay. They don't want to write, but I can tell you that my students learn to love putting together a written project. So there were multiple things that my students did, we participated in the business service operations, of course, community service, we did the chapter projects, the learning earn, which is now the titles have changed and are different. But we did all of those projects and integrated fashion into them. So we were in every category of the written projects, we still stayed as far as the individual projects, we stayed with the apparel and accessories and the retail. And then we got into the buying and merchandising. So that was also very successful with my sophomore level class because that's the way I integrated them into the DECA competition.

18:14 That rounds out, you know "Why Fashion Marketing" how your fashion marketing program can go beyond being a one semester or a one year program and be very robust. I mean, I'm telling you that the work is rigorous. The students learn a lot. We were able to connect with industry students, we're getting internships, they're still doing it, even though I'm not they're getting internships. Their dual credit work was feeding into the Dallas Colleges program so they can get their associate's degree early because by the time they finish their senior year, they had 18 hours of college credit, they were able to because the Dallas College's courses are articulated with several colleges, they were able to transfer those credits over to the college and already start having like a whole semester under their belt and finish their coursework a little earlier than some of their peers. So they were able to do all those things, because they did take the fashion marketing program courses while they were in high school. So if you really want to look at extending your fashion marketing program, I'd be happy to talk with you about some more in depth information. Of course, I did not establish our program. It existed when I got there, it had been in place. Our school is over 50 years old. And so the program had already been in place for three decades by the time I came there as a teacher, but I was able to do some things to extend the program to make it more rigorous and just incorporate some more project oriented things into it. Anyway, so there you have it as far as a Fashion Marketing Program and how it can go beyond one semester or a year and be something that's very valuable to the culture of your school and get kids engaged. Thanks for listening to Marketing EdVenture. Remember to subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with someone who will benefit from the information shared here today. If you have any questions or want to connect with me, find me on Instagram at Marketing EdVenture. All links and resources discussed in this episode can be found in the show notes at MarketingEdVenture.com.