beauty/fashion
Fashion 101 by Dawn Bluemel Oldfield
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines fashion as “the prevailing style (as in dress) during a particular time.” But, did you ever really stop to think about your clothes? How your favorite blouse went from haute couture to prêt-aporter, and how it got from the store to your closet? It turns out there is a real science to it, and the Career & Technology Education (CTE) department at Allen High School gets an A+ for offering students a Fashion Marketing program that would win accolades from fashion guru Tim Gunn. Fashion Marketing instructor Cheryl Lee explains, “The CTE wing opened in fall 2011. The new facility offers programs of study that expose students to different industries and they can see if it’s something they may be gifted in. Then they can pursue that gift and flourish.
What they learn in the classroom today, they aspire to do tomorrow.” Cara Radford, a junior at AHS, took the Fashion Marketing class last year and is applying what she learned at the Eagle Edge, the school store she runs with her ATeam classmates, as well as at her job at the Banana Republic Factory Store in the Allen Premium Outlet Mall. A poised, articulate young woman, Cara says, “Since I work in fashion, I wanted to get a better idea of how the fashion industry works. I wanted to know all the ins-and-outs of the business. In class I not only learned about all the careers—there are so many ways to make a living in the multi-billion dollar world of fashion—but what drives the industry, too.” Cheryl says, “Fashion marketing is more than how much something costs, which store sells the apparel and merchandising techniques—there is the psychology and sociology of it. It’s all about the people. Fashion marketers know that at the core it is about connecting with the consumer and understanding how they feel and what they want.”
“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street; fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” – Coco Chanel
Delia Lombardo
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Cheryl continues, “Every Friday the class visits The Village at Fairview. Rather than talking theory in the classroom, we go to stores for real-life lessons.” Cara chimes in, “Every little detail is carefully thought out. There is a strategy to dressing rooms—how roomy they are, or how they’re decorated to make the customer feel comfortable; window displays are often the first impression people have of the store, and it brings customers in; positioning new merchandise up front and clearance items in the back—affect people’s buying habits; and we learned about trends in fashion design.” It seems what was old is new again, with fashions reinventing themselves every decade or so. But, who decides the color and style trends each year? According to