DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students discover how fashion designers track street trends to determine consumers’ fashion tastes and interests. The process of analyzing and evaluating trends and scanning a variety of sources for information is known as fashion trend forecasting.

Social media fuels the spread of street fashion trends, and fashion designers are influenced by these social media-driven fashion trends. Students learn the many ways that fashion designers spot new fashion trends. While choosing which fashion items to design and manufacture, students track and see how well the fashion items they’ve chosen match current consumer fashion trends. Finally, students use all they’ve learned about trend research in the fashion industry to identify popular fashion trends and make decisions on which fashionable items will be manufactured.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand the many ways fashion designers detect fashion trends - fashion shows, top models, fashion weeks, and street fashion trends.
• Identify how data analytics and consumer research are increasingly being used to determine fashion trends and consumer purchasing intent.
• Recognize how social media and fashion bloggers have impacted the fashion design process.
• Balance clothing manufacturing costs vs. popularity of specific styles.
• Study Trend Reports to determine the popular fashion styles and trends.

DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students will learn how to design fashion based on popular trends. In addition to designing stylish fashion, students learn the business decisions inherent in the fashion business - how to design popular clothes that can be manufactured at a profitable price. Students will consult a Trend Report to see what fashion styles are trending and popular via social media. Consumers will pay for value (features they want). But, while designing fashion items, students will learn the maximum price that consumers will pay. Finally, students see how well fashion items they’ve designed are selling, and have the opportunity to design more fashion items to drive additional sales and revenue.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Utilize the principles of design to design fashion.
• Understand the economics and supply chain of profitable fashion businesses.
• Design fashions that appeal to current trends, but can also be priced so that customers can afford them
• Discover how fashion designers use the four basic elements of design.
• Use the basic steps in designing a fashion line - mood board, color palette, etc.
• Calculate the wholesale price of a garment to include labor, materials and markup.
• Learn what a tech pack is in the fashion industry - an informative sheet that designers create to outline to manufacturers all the necessary components needed to construct a product.

DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students explore the role of Buyer for a fashion business. Fashion is unlike most retail businesses where the same items sell for years at a time. Fashion buyers must read and predict trends accurately and order the correct number of garments for a store. Buyers must also ensure that items with long lead times arrive in time for seasonal sales. Throughout the buying process, students learn to manage cash flow. Students learn that there are production costs involved in a fashion business designing its own fashion items. Students also learn the delivery schedules involved in ordering fashion. While manufacturing your own designs will be cheaper overall, the delivery date is longer vs. buying clothes that have already been manufactured.  Finally, students focus on buying dresses to simulate all the principles of fashion buying that they have learned.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Use Trend Research to make fashion purchasing decisions for a retail store.
• Assess multiple variables in making purchasing decisions - quantity, style, manufacturing costs for self-designed fashion items, etc.
• Manage cash flow as you order fashion items for your store.
• Balance manufacturing and shipping times for fashion items with goal to stock store for the season.
• Discover line sheets - the ordering forms used in the fashion business to order garments by size, color, delivery dates, cost, etc.
• Understand retail inventory systems for fashion - periodic inventory system vs. perpetual inventory system.

DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students learn the many issues that go into pricing fashion items. Product pricing can mean the difference between success or failure. Pricing in fashion is like pricing in all businesses. Fashion companies need to charge more than their costs to make money. Price levels of fashion products are directly related to the quality of the garments and the labor involved in creating them. In other ways, the fashion business is different. As seasons and styles fluctuate, pricing tactics can be used to manage the transitions. Markdowns are a key pricing strategy in the fashion business. As new fashion comes into the store, fashion retailers markdown older items while always retaining some profit margin. Finally, students take control of pricing for a fashion retailer - they determine initial pricing, adjust pricing based on inventory and rate of sales, and eventually work through the markdown pricing while always striving to make a profit on all sales.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand keystone pricing (100% above cost of goods).
• Calculate markups for fashion items.
• Track markdown pricing as fashion items are on the shelves longer and new inventory comes into the store.
• Avoid confusing gross profit and gross margin - two different numbers to chart the success of a fashion business.
• Use fashion price tiers to determine pricing for fashion items.

DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students learn how important location is to the success and profitability of a retail fashion store. A great, well curated fashion store can fail if the store is in a bad location and not easily accessible to consumers. Ground floors of shopping malls normally have higher traffic and higher rent than upper floors.With fashion retailers, the bigger the display windows - the better. Anchor department stores can create more customer traffic that will benefit nearby stores. A lower rent is always better in terms of the bottom-line profitability of a retail fashion store. Students compare and contrast many variables that impact a store’s profitability - rent, location within a mall, frontage, customer traffic, flow. Finally, students use what they have learned about location to find a profitable sight for their retail fashion store.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Identify the impact that different physical locations have on the success of retail fashion stores.
• Understand which locations in a shopping mall have better customer traffic.
• Track and analyze the profitability of different locations for a retail fashion store.
• Take charge of a fashion retail store’s location and find the location that leads to the most customer traffic, sales, and profitability.

DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students learn how fashion merchandisers maximize sales through the use of window displays and product placement within stores. Starting from bare mannequins, students learn the process of designing eye-catching, impactful product displays that will entice consumers and drive fashion sales. If potential customers don’t respond to a window display, students must assess and change their visual merchandising to attract the most customers. Students study consumer behavior of impulse and needs purchases, and how the layout of fashion items within the store can impact bottom-line sales. If specific categories of fashion items aren’t selling well, students can test how changing the location of the items within the store impact sales. Finally, students use all they’ve learned about visual merchandising to design the visual display and layout of a store to generate maximum sales and profit.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Identify the impact of store layout and merchandise displays on sales.
• Use consumers’ impulse and needs purchase behavior to design a profitable store.
• Understand how digital displays are being used in contemporary retail/store design.
• Appreciate the impact of color on consumer purchases.
• Analyze store layouts and the impact on consumer traffic flow through the store.

DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students learn the importance of employees in the ultimate success of a fashion business. Fashion retail businesses have to juggle the twin demands of consumer traffic patterns with the right amount of employees. Hiring or scheduling too many employees can impact the profitability of the business. Students learn to assess the proper staffing levels to manage the volume of consumer traffic. Depending on the type of retailer, the sales staff have different qualities as employees. Students will learn the hiring process and how it differs based on the type of retailer. While always striving for excellent customer service, fashion retailers must watch their wage costs relative to sales and revenues. Finally, students will have to balance all they’ve learned about the cost of staffing, as well as the need for key staffing levels for customer satisfaction, to reach optimum staffing in a retail fashion store while also achieving profitability goals.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand the importance of employees and staffing to the success of a business.
• Appreciate the delicate balance between scheduling too many or too few employees.
• Track staffing levels vs. profitability and consumer traffic patterns.
• Identify the importance of the hiring process for fashion retailers, and understand key employment metrics such as revenue per employee.
• Learn the many steps to the sales process - pre-approach, approach, determining needs and wants, presenting the product, etc.

DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students learn how fashion professionals boost sales through social media and website-based promotion. Designers and brands are discovering new ways to adapt social media to benefit their businesses and increase their exposure, and maintaining an online presence has become a must for any fashion business. The number of social media channels and platforms is growing, and students learn about what makes each social media platform unique for promotion/branding. Students learn how specific social media content impacts sales and revenues. Just being active on social media isn’t enough. Sharing relevant content to customers and potential customers is very important. Finally, students will be challenged to reach a specific weekly revenue amount by utilizing a variety of social media and website promotion tactics.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Use social media to promote a fashion brand.  
• Assess the connection between social media promotion and sales/revenues.
• Manage social media promotion efforts across multiple social media platforms.
• Discover the variety of social media platforms (Snapchat, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and how each is used for promotion.
• Understand the importance of social media/online promotion for the success of a fashion business.

DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students learn how fashion businesses measure their success financially. An income statement summarizes a business’s revenue, costs, and expenses during a specific time period, such as a month, a quarter, or a year. Because it shows the profitability of a company, it is sometimes called a profit and loss statement, or P&L. Students learn how to determine if a fashion business is profitable - total revenues minus total expenses equals profit. Students will learn the differences between assets and liabilities. Assets are anything of economic value that a business owns, and they can be classified as current assets or fixed assets. Finally, students use what they have learned to decipher the financial statement of a struggling fashion business and make business decisions and changes to make the company profitable.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand the data and numbers that make up a business’s income statement.
• Identify key financial measurements - gross sales, allowances, net sales, cost of goods sold (COGS), etc.
• Track a business’s assets and liabilities.
• Analyze the cost of starting a fashion business.
• Understand a business balance sheet and the importance of each category of assets or liabilities.

DESCRIPTION

Up to 80% of new retail clothing businesses fail within the first five years. In this lesson, students learn about the strategies and tactics used to turnaround a failing retail fashion business. The fashion business is a tough business. News headlines routinely announce the closing of well-known retail fashion chains. Consumer fashion tastes can change overnight, and retailers have to constantly monitor consumers’ fashion tastes and be willing to reinvent their stores and inventory to stay competitive and profitable. Students will read, analyze, and study case studies of well-known brands who have struggled with fashion retailing - GAP, JCPenney, and Target. These real-world case studies will resonate with students who are familiar with these iconic brands. Finally, students use what they have learned about the fashion business - fashion design, trend monitoring, and social media marketing - to turnaround a failing fashion business and get the business back to profitability.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand the reasons behind fashion retailers’ failures - overstoring, the rise of fast fashion, and changing consumers tastes.
• Analyze case studies of multiple real-world turnaround efforts - GAP, JCPenney, Target’s struggles with fast fashion retailers.
• Diagnose the problems that a troubled fashion retailer is experiencing.
• Use a variety of tactics - fashion design, trend monitoring, and social media monitoring - to turnaround a struggling fashion retailer.

DESCRIPTION

In this capstone project, students use all the skills they’ve learned throughout the previous lessons. Students are challenged to open a retail store in the best location for success. Students also manage all the tasks that lead to a successful fashion business - spotting trends, designing fashion items, buying fashion garments, and designing the store’s visual merchandising. To increase sales, students focus on social media and website marketing for their fashion business. Throughout the project, students consult the financial reports for their fashion business to determine what changes they should implement to increase their sales and profits. Advanced students, once they’ve mastered the intricacies of running a fashion retail store, have the option of opening a second store in the shopping mall. They can test their management and fashion business skills running two popular fashion stores in the same shopping center. Students pursue a cumulative profit goal as they run their business over several fashion seasons.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand the importance of location for a fashion store and choose the best location for customer traffic and sales.
• Study the financial statements of their fashion business and make resulting changes to a store and business to increase sales, revenues, and profitability.
• Use social media marketing to promote a fashion business.
• Balance manufacturing clothes directly vs. purchasing fashion items to increase sales.
• Plan staffing schedules to balance customer satisfaction vs. cost of wages.