Semester review, part 2: fashion industry class

Before the start of the semester I was excitedly looking forward to my fashion industry class. I know I want to become a designer, but I do not know exactly what it is I want to do as a designer. I know very little about the fashion industry, so I am not sure who I want to work for or what sort of job I want. I hoped this class would teach me what I needed to figure out what I want to do. It didn’t.

I wanted to learn about fashion companies and how the industry functions. The class was about how to run a company. I do not feel at all prepared to run a company. The class was taught by an instructor from the apparel design department, not one from the business department. I will be taking two business classes this summer and more in the coming semesters. Perhaps those classes will prepare me to run a company, but I do not want to be the boss. I just want to work for someone else, collect a regular paycheck, and be told what to do.

The apparel design department’s intro class is not required for transfer students, but I will be taking it next semester. The intro class covers a lot of the stuff I hoped to learn in the fashion industry class. Fashion industry was a required class, so I’ll just think of it as three credits closer to graduation.

Although I feel I did not benefit much from this class, I did have a lot of fun with the final project. It was a group project. We had to design a product and create a company to market it. I wanted to make national costume doll outfits to coincide with the World Cup, but the other members of my group did not like playing with dolls. One of the women in the group once saw an article about using fabric with piezoelectric nanowires to generate electricity, and she thought clothing that could be used to recharge cell phones would be a good idea. The technology does not work, but our instructor loved the idea.

For the project we needed in a binder describing our product and company, and we had to make a three minute presentation advertising the product. I was not happy about having to design a marketing scheme for a product that I know could not work, but I had a lot of fun with my sales pitch. Unfortunately the other members of the group edited out some of my best bits. I set a price for our product, then used the following explanation to justify that price:

The technology upon which this product is based does not in fact exist. Piezoelectric nanowires exist and can be used to generate electricity, but there is no known process for waterproofing the wires. Atmospheric humidity is enough to render the wires inoperable. Our project is a work of science fiction. There are no data to support our price estimates. With a great deal of fanfare, Daniel Cole pulled the numbers from his ass and declared them to be good.

I felt honesty is good, but I was overruled. My teacher did not see my price explanation. Perhaps that was best. My final grade for this class was an A.