The Colorado State University Department of Design and Merchandising launched an event this year to help apparel and merchandising students get a head start on their careers. The department held the first annual Apparel and Merchandising Industry Expo on Oct. 6, allowing students to create professional connections with recognized brands in the apparel industry.
Representatives from 14 brands participated in the event, including well-known names like Crocs, Obermeyer, and URBN.
First steps in creation
To be able to help students create valuable connections with the industry, the faculty and staff behind the Expo, led by Internship Coordinator and Instructor Joan Anderson, and Assistant Professor Kevin Kissell, had to work around challenges in reaching out to industry giants and notable brands.
Anderson said the Expo was valuable given industry partners restrictive travel budgets or limited time.
“Knowing that the students who our industry partners will be interacting with are focused on textile and apparel related positions within their brands makes conversations more productive for both the brands and the students,” Anderson said.
Kissell mentioned that other similar career exploration events, like CSU’s Career Fair, didn’t feature many representatives from the apparel and merchandising industry.
Connecting the industry to CSU
The Industry Expo event was launched to help students thrive in the industry, with benefits geared towards the wider department as well, where representatives were able to see what CSU has to offer to the industry at-large.
According to Anderson, brands can see state-of-the-art facilities in the Gifford Building, the Nancy Richardson Design Center, and the Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising and interact with internationally recognized faculty and staff.
“Brand representatives have the opportunity to immerse themselves in our campus and really get a feel for our collegial and upbeat departmental culture,” Anderson said. “That goes a long way with building long-term industry relationships that support a talent pipeline for our students, resources for our faculty, and CSU and apparel and merchandising brand recognition among industry leaders.”
For students, Kissell and Anderson continued to emphasize the importance of industry connections for success in the apparel and merchandising industry.
“It’s almost like ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,’ in this industry, you must use your connections! It’s about ‘who you know’,” Kissell said. “Our graduates know people, and those people know people, so our students can benefit from those connections.”
Students also got the chance to practice professionalism, such as holding engaging conversations and speaking about their strengths. Anderson mentioned she was impressed with how students conducted themselves throughout the Expo.
“Industry participants shared that our students were well-prepared and professional, knowledgeable about the brands they were talking to, and took a ‘here is how I can help you’ attitude rather than a ‘what can you do for me’ attitude that is pervasive among job seekers,” Anderson said.
Kissell and Anderson recalled positive student reactions to the Expo as well. Kissell hoped students realized how connected the Department of Design and Merchandising is within the fashion industry.
With the success of the Expo, Anderson and Kissell aim to continue the event annually, benefiting more students over time, as well as providing more exposure to the Department of Design and Merchandising and CSU.
“We will most definitely be doing this annually. It went really well,” Anderson said. “This year we had 14 brands and doubling that is not out of the question for next year.”
The event was made possible in part by Antigone Kotsiopoulos and Jerry Culp who funded meals for industry partners. Kotsiopulos worked at CSU from 1979 to 2006 as an associate dean in the College of Health and Human Sciences and professor and department head in the Department of Design and Merchandising. Culp is also a retiree of the department.
The Department of Design and Merchandising is part of CSU’s College of Health and Human Sciences.
