I was extremely fortunate to be accepted into the specialized NY Immersion program at my school, Philadelphia University. Students are provided hands-on-experience in the fashion industry by visiting fashion showrooms, meeting with industry professionals, going to New York Fashion week, and taking part in a major Nexus Learning project. For the Nexus Learning project PhilaU collaborated with C Wonder which was just awhile ago attained by Xcel Brands. Both fashion merchandising and fashion design students collaboratively had to work together by establishing seven essential wonders within the category the group picked. My group picked childrenswear because of C Wonder’s whimsical style. Along with the seven essential items, each group had to come up with a concept that eventually drove their seven essential’s aesthetic to create a product board, along with a fabric and trim board.

In addition to the three boards, we were asked to come up with marketing strategies and merchandising concepts for a distribution channel to help support our childrenswear category. From coming up with a customer profile to creating a mock up store design,  I would say this part of the project really opened up my eyes as a designer to the business end of the industry. There is so much that goes on before the deigning even starts.

Overall takeaways from the class:

I learned so much about the business end of fashion. Designing doesn't work if the marketing doesn't match up. Working in a group with so many different people with different skills can be challenging but I delegated the work in order to bring out people's strengths. We met every single day and formed a friendship which made this project fun.

I even learned to say no, which was always hard for me. I’m not the best at confrontation but when I didn't agree with a color or picture choice.