Teaching During Lockdown: Transition to Online Learning
In our quest of understanding more about teaching during lockdown and how different educational institutions and their teachers transitioned to online learning we stumbled upon Parsons School of Design, New York. And so we wondered. How does a prestigious design institution handle online learning?
Luckily, Joshua Williams, Assistant Professor Of Fashion Management was kind enough to give us some very insightful information.
Conversation with Sam Cotton, Creative Director, Raiment
Sam Cotton shares insight on the fashion design process within the context of the full supply chain, from sourcing materials and production to retailing and end use. He discusses the fashion industry within the wider lens of philosophic and economic models and shares his ideas for a more sustainable future.
Bonus Conversation: Jeanette & Glenda
MPS Fashion Management students Jeanette Gong and Glenda Widjaja share their retail strategies for Aimé Leon Dore and Urban Outfitters, as part of their “Retailing and Service Design” final projects. They also provide insight on Gen Z customers and how brands can better engage them.
Bonus Conversation: Emily & Jessica
Global Fashion Management students Emily Wiens and Jessica Tsai share their retail strategies for Net-a-Porter and Mujui, as part of their “Retailing and Service Design” final projects. They also provide insight on youth culture, consumer engagement and post-pandemic retailing.
Conversation with Jon Harari, CEO, WindowsWear
Jon Harari shares his insight about the digitization of fashion and the work WindowsWear is doing to aggregate the creativity of store designers, visual merchandisers and packaging specialists. He equates information as power in a digital economy.
Building a Successful and Authentic Fashion Brand
The more competitive and saturated the fashion marketplace becomes, the more important it is for brands to be authentic in how they engage with customers. Brand authenticity must be considered from a 360 degree perspective, including the physical (products, store experience) and the digital (web store, social media), always ensuring customer needs are being met. These needs are both functional (access to product, product’s utility) and emotional (sense of community, customer service), and goes beyond group identification through logos and icons. In short, it requires brands to consider the whole brand experience from the customer’s perspective.
Bustle article features Joshua Williams discussing Fashion Post-Pandemic
Why do major historic moments change how we dress?
“Historic moments are integrally linked to sartorial response,” McElvain says. “For example, during WWII, women were used to wearing shorter A-line skirts due to austerity measures and available materials. After Christian Dior introduced huge pleated skirts in 1947, women were ready to indulge.”
You can go back even further, according to Joshua Williams, assistant professor of fashion management at the Parsons School of Design. “Specifically, [think] of fashion post-French Revolution,” Williams says. “During the Reign of Terror, children of the aristocrats used fashion as a way to create community and provoke society to bring attention to their lost families and fortunes. They would often wear transparent clothes in public, as well as exaggerated styles such as outrageous hats. They were known as “‘Les Incroyables et Les Merveilleuses.’”
Ultimately, this exaggerated style led to “a simplification of fashion,” according to Williams. “That was more the rage during Napoleon’s reign,” he says. “For example, [there was] the empire waist that was much more comfortable to wear, especially for women, than the layered, extravagant styles pre-war. I see parallels with this move toward comfort and ease of movement happening now.”
WWD Features "Retail Revolution" podcast
As students transition from the classroom to virtual learning, Parsons School of Design has launched a Retail Revolution podcast that features weekly episodes with experts from a variety of fields offering insights and perspectives on how retailers can weather the coronavirus crisis.
Conversation with Xia Feng, E-Com Expert & CEO, The How Consulting
Xia Feng illuminates the major shifts that are happening in the fashion digital space. She discusses how the Chinese market may hold answers for American and European brands and their quest to connect more authentically, and in real time, with consumers online.
Conversation with Brandon Roe, Marketing Expert & Author
Brandon Roe provides insight on how luxury brands can better engage customers by understanding the unique cohorts that shop for luxury products and services. He also provides clear steps that fashion brands can take to ensure they manage through the Covid-19 crisis—internally and externally—and come out stronger post-pandemic.
Conversation with Meisha Brown, VP Department Stores, Kering Eyewear
Meisha Brown shares her deep experience and perspective in multi-label luxury merchandising in a time of major retail disruption. She discusses everything from developing brands on the store floor through thoughtful merchandising to dealing with vendor relationships. She also offers advice to future merchandisers, including the need to understand both retail math and fashion trends.
Conversation with Noam Levavi, CEO, BYOND XR
Noam Levavi challenges our concepts of what retail might look like in 3 to 5 years, discussing how the shift into the virtual world will be accelerated post Covid-19 pandemic and how adopting new technologies will unveil new opportunities for brands, retailers and designers. He elaborates how the virtual transformation will allow brands to be more innovative, personalized, efficient and sustainable in how they design, showroom and sell their products and services.
Bonus Episode: Hopes & Fears for Fashion’s Future
In this short, bonus episode, Jordana Guimaraes discusses the hopes and fears that fashion industry professionals are grappling with during the Covid-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding the real issues the pandemic has created, she posits that a time of crisis creates opportunity to design innovative solutions.
Conversation with Kevin Thompson, Chief Brand Strategist
Kevin Thompson shares his perspective on the changing landscape of retailing, particularly as it relates to brick & mortar operations and design. He also discusses the marketing needs of a fashion brand and how communication is a two-way street, wherein customers must have a voice.
Conversation with Lauren McGuire, President, Man Made Music
Lauren McGuire discusses sonic branding and the use of sound overall in retail environments, online and onsite. She focuses on how sound impacts the shopping experience, and shares her insight on how sound might be used after we reach the end of the pandemic.