Episode 24: Fashion Show Artistry: Crafting Themes for the Runway | Mastering the Production Series, Part 4

0:01 Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to Marketing EdVenture with Jacqué Walker. We are currently in this fashion production series, an 11-part fashion production series going over all the stages of producing a fashion show. So we've already done three parts. Today I'm introducing part four, which is theme development. So we're gonna get into “How do we actually come up with the theme for a fashion show?” So go ahead and get your pen and paper ready. As we dive into making a theme come to life.

0:46 You're listening to Marketing EdVenture, the hub for business, fashion, marketing, and other CTE educators who integrate marketing into the learning experience. I'm your host, Jacqué 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.

1:25 So let's get started talking about developing a theme for your fashion show. So we've talked about the roles and responsibilities. And now we have everyone in positions, the teams all picked out. We now get to develop the theme for the fashion show. This was one of the most exciting parts of Fashion Show Production for my students. Because after we had our lead roles, as far as the fashion show director, model coordinator, the merchandise coordinator and all the other roles, they were ready to get to planning for the fashion show. So one of the first things you have to do is determine what theme the fashion show has.

2:10 So I'm sure there are many ways in which you can come up with a theme for a fashion show. But I'm going to tell you about the two different ways that I did it with my students as a high school fashion show production. My class was marketing. It was a part of our dual credit curriculum to produce a fashion show. For years, we did that by one of the two methods that I'm going to tell you about. And then for the latter part of the years that I was a fashion marketing teacher, we used the second method that I'm going to tell you about. Of the two methods one is in when the fashion marketing class does a group pitch for a fashion show. And then the second one was when the fashion marketing class collaborated with the fashion design class. And we did a show based upon what the fashion design students produced. So I'm going to go into detail about those two, and how they actually differ. And what we did to develop the theme.

3:30 So let's go with the fashion marketing class group pitch. What I would do is break my students into groups. I suggest these groups be two to four students per group. One time I had a class that was really large, and we had like five or six people in a group. But I don't recommend having groups that large because then it just becomes too many voices in one group, or maybe someone's not participating. So just two to four is a good number to have in a group. So once I put my students into groups, each team had to develop a theme concept. Now I'm not going to get very granular into all of these steps. I just want to give you a high level idea of how your groups or your students can come up with a theme for the fashion show. So like I said most they were in their groups, they would then develop a theme concept. They will come up with the name of the show, the idea or inspiration for the show. They would come up with merchandise and things of that nature. They would just go through all of the elements of what the show could be about. Once the students came up with their information for their theme of the fashion show, they would then create a slideshow presentation. Of course, they had their title page. And then they had their group members and all of their ideas and inspirations and pictures to support their theme. After the presentations were developed, each group had an opportunity to pitch their theme. As a class, we listened to each team pitch, their theme idea, and we took notes so that we could compare, contrast, discuss, collaborate, all of those things, once all of the presentations were done.

5:48 So after all the presentations were done, like I said, we would collaborate and we would discuss the pros, cons, and things we liked about each group's presentation. Now, you may be thinking, “So if everybody's pitching these things, then how do you actually settle on one thing?” I can tell you sometimes, most times, it was pretty easy. Because students really like ideas that other students presented. And they were really good about saying, “Hey, we like that, maybe we can take this part and implement it to our show, maybe we can take this and implement it into our show.” So they were very good about extracting ideas from everybody's presentation, and bringing it together as one. So we did our collaboration, we wrote on the board what we liked about all of the presentations. And then they would just sit there and have a discussion and hash it out as far as what we could possibly do to actually incorporate several of the ideas from all of the presentations. They really wanted it to be a collaborative thing. They really wanted to take everyone's idea to heart and find some kind of way to incorporate it into the show. It can be very territorial, as far as the ideas are concerned. But when you have a group of students who have been in class with one another for the last two years, they become sisters and good buddies and friends. They really want to make sure everyone is happy. So they found a way to collaborate, and mesh all the ideas together. And I know a lot of you are not going to have that same type of program where you have students who have been in class with one another for two years. But you can still make sure that you find a way to have their ideas, everyone's ideas heard, and then walk them through picking out ideas and concepts that would work within the show from all of the suggestions that have been made.

8:08 Now once all of the discussion is done, the students come together, and they have a theme. They've decided on a theme. And so then they create a theme concept with information from that collaboration. This is going to be all of the information about the show: the name of the show, the target market, the description of the concept, sketch of the stage, merchandise, all of these things. They're going to decide on that for the fashion show. Then they're going to finalize the concept and develop a story book. I have an outline of a story book that the students develop. This storybook is like a presentation in the slideshow format and also in a booklet format because once they put it together, I would print it out and spiral it. I would create several copies of it so that the students in each major role could have that booklet as a part of their resources. We also have it to present to retailers and designers or even our administration so that they can understand what our show is about and buy into our event. This as we used to get others to buy into our fashion show. They will create a storybook. I'll have an outline of that with all of my resources that I'm going to make available in the fall of 2024. Now once the story book is completed, they'll do a presentation for me so that I could give the final approval for the fashion show. And yes, I am involved all along the way, as the students are collaborating, coming up with their ideas and everything. But once they've developed that theme, I release them to go and produce the storybook and put all of the information together. They have a guideline on what is needed in the storybooks. Let them put that all together. And then they can come back with a formal presentation of the story book and the concept for the things and I give my final proof that “Yeah, I give my stamp on the fashion show”, and then they move forward with all of their planning and everything. So that is how we went about doing the fashion marketing class group pitch to come up with the theme for the fashion show.

10:54 Now with the fashion marketing class group pitch, the theme development is done by the fashion marketing students. And the merchandise is sourced to fit the theme from retailers, the campus fashion design students at the school, or college fashion design programs, or independent designers, or donations, or whatever means that the students can find to collect clothing that fit the theme of the fashion show.

11:37 Now the second method of determining the theme that we would have for our fashion show is by collaborating with the fashion design students at the school in which I taught fashion marketing. I was a part of a fashion magnet program. And marketing was half of that program and design was the other half of the program. So in the second scenario, we would collaborate with the fashion design students. And we would spotlight the fashion design students' clothing production. And although each designer had their own creative line, my students would create the canvas in which the designs would be showcased. I explained to the students that the runway and the stage should be a neutral setting that any style can be displayed on. And there may be changes to props and the backdrops, in order to fit maybe the particular style of the designer that we were spotlighting at the time, but the whole set would not be specific to any one designer. So now this process took a little bit of coaching with my students. Because initially, for the first few years that I was teaching, we came up with a theme. We decided what the clothing was going to be and all of that. And the designers would then cater to whatever our theme was. The design teacher and I had a discussion one time. She was expressing how her students wanted to come up with their own line of clothing to be showcased in the fashion show. In the real world, designers are creating their own lines of clothing. And then a fashion show is being produced to showcase that line. So I said let's line up with what the industry is doing. So we then would begin the process of collaborating.

13:51 So what I would do is meet with the fashion design teacher to obtain the number of designers that were going to be in the fashion show and take notes on what it was they were producing. It wasn't anything I did that was detail involved, because the students are going to be doing that as you're going to find out in just a moment. But I would just get an idea of what it is that the students were looking to produce, and how many items each student was going to produce for the fashion show, so that I can then take that information back to my students and we can begin to prep and discuss how we were going to approach collaborating with the designers. I would also give her a Designer Collection Concept form. This is what the designers would use to document the information about their collection.

14:48 Now, after my discussion with the fashion design teacher, I would have a discussion with the fashion marketing class, I would introduce the information that was shared by the fashion design teacher, and I would give them an overview of how to conduct an interview with the fashion design students. They also had their Designer Interview form, which would lead them through the discussion with the fashion design students. It's very key that you tell your students to be very good listeners. They are there to hear what the designer has to say about their fashion line; to hear how they want their products or their line to be introduced and spotlighted. They are to hear all of the desires the designer has to make their line come to life. So it's really hard for students who are wanting to take this and run and just come up with their own ideas to sit and listen. So I had to coach them on that. And then we allow them to go over and sit and talk with the designer. And it was a really fun opportunity for them to sit and talk with the designer, and hear what the designer has to say. Then they’d come back and begin their collaboration, creativity, and thinking of ideas and things of that nature.

16:38 So as a part of the process of them having their collaborative meeting with the designer, they also took pictures. They would take pictures of the patterns that the designers were using. They would also take pictures of the fabric that the designer was choosing to use for their clothing items. If the designer already started on production of items, they would take pictures of that as well. This is part of them documenting the information about the designer, so that they can really develop a concept for that designer's spotlight, their showcase. Then they would also obtain a copy of the Designer Collection Concept form, because this has more detailed information that the designer has written out about their collection.

17:36 Once they have completed their interview with the designer, they will come back to the classroom, and they will begin the process of developing a slideshow presentation of their designer. Then they will present their designer to the fashion marketing class. We would listen to each designer's concept and ideas for their clothing line. That way we had an idea over all of what each designer was doing. So this was really important because this then starts to help set the tone of what the fashion show theme could be. Alright, so the class discussion would ensue about developing a neutral theme that would allow each designers’ collection to be showcased and would not overpower any of the designers or lean toward any one designer. So they will begin that discussion. They would document their ideas on the fashion show production ideation form. And then they will formulate a thing. And then once they come up with that theme, and sometimes it would get narrowed down to maybe two themes. And they would toy around with that.

17:36 So then, once the theme or themes is determined, then they present both of the themes to the fashion design class. And this is going to be the first iteration of presenting the ideas. And so they develop a slideshow presentation with all the information on there that they've come up with as far as the concept and everything and the theme and present it to the design class. Then the design class has an opportunity to provide feedback. And with that feedback, the fashion marketing students would then go and update the presentation and then re-present it to the design students again. And then once they have gotten buy-in from the design students, then they would go ahead and finalize the theme concept and develop a storybook and present it to the teacher for final approval.

20:15 And there you have it, those are your two different methods of coming up with a theme for a fashion show. Of course, as you can tell, there is a lot of discussion collaboration going on, there are documents, there are processes within this collaboration in theme development. Now, all of this will be provided in detail in my Fashion Show Production Program course that's coming out in the fall of 2024. So stay tuned for that. So that you can be the first one to sign up for that program, and be able to produce a fashion show as a fundraiser for your program, or just as a grade. The fashion show production, like I said, was a part of my students' dual credit program. And so they actually got a college grade for producing the fashion show. And there were so many grades within that development timeframe of the show being developed. But also the final production was a grade, and they also had to score each other with peer evaluations on how each person performed their task.

21:45 So there you have it, theme development for a fashion show production. I hope you find that to be very valuable. And I love to hear your feedback on it. You can always message me on Instagram at Marketing EdVenture. And I would love to hear your feedback and respond to you. I want to know if this is valuable to you? Are you finding value in this fashion show production series? Let me know if there's something I haven't touched on. In my outline, you'll see it in the description or in the show notes. I outline the 11 parts that I'm going to talk about. If there's something that's not listed there, let me know because I could include it in my series about the fashion show production.After producing 12 student-led fashion shows, let me tell you, we've been through it all. Okay. Thank you for listening here Marketing EdVenture, I hope you have a wonderfully blessed day.

22:46 If you found value in this fashion show production series, I have a program that will be available in the fall 2024. It will provide a scope of resources to help you create and implement a successful fashion show. It's something I've wanted to do for years because the fashion show has so many moving parts. And of course, when you're managing students who were responsible for implementing the show, it really is a project management responsibility. Now this program will contain video and audio modules, as well as a project management framework. Proprietary documents for management in all areas of the responsibilities; signature model call framework; an outline for creating your fashion show bible; media kit framework; real examples of my productions; and highlights of my student-led fashion shows and so much more. Now stay tuned for the early bird invitation to access the program. I look forward to having you access that. And I also look forward to hearing about your fashion show productions and seeing them on Instagram. So be sure to connect with me at marketingedventure so I can see all of the wonderful work that you're doing with your program.

24:23 Thanks for listening to Marketing EdVenture. Remember to subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with someone you think could benefit from the information shared here today. If you have any questions or want to connect with me, find me on Instagram at marketingedventure. All links and resources discussed in this episode can be found in the show notes at MarketingEdVenture.com.