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The Pitfalls of Fashion

Intervention 4

A social event will be held on 14th Dec. festival. Put up a poster with the theme “Fashion students will have more initiative in the future!”, to tell visitors the real feelings of fashion students and the real situation they face. I will collect visitors’ feelings on fashion graduates, and the pressures of the fashion industry. And Follow my Instagram page, which will also be used to promote the website for the future collection of start-up designers.

I was asked and invited to use some of Instagram @1granary’s posts to showcase the various social realities faced by fashion graduates.

Fashion graduates no longer have almost no choice of companies. Despite the fact that British universities and fashion schools are reputed to be the best in the world, too many graduates leave school unsatisfied. According to annual satisfaction surveys, career paths are not adequately explained, technical courses like pattern cutting are missing, and business training is not even covered. In an interview with The Guardian, Sarah Mauer (chief critic of Vogue.com) said: “A huge skills gap is emerging – many universities are no longer cutting patterns, and design houses are desperate for skilled pattern cutters and paying good salaries. People design a collection, but it’s the technicians who sew it.”

If more and more young designers want to set up on their own and create their own labels, then there is no doubt that fashion education needs to be overhauled. A degree in fashion needs time to evolve, the question itself, challenge and reflect. Why does the final product have to be the ultimate collection that students spend hundreds to thousands of pounds to achieve? To simply mimic outdated industry structures, seasonal and traditional fashion presentations, and rules that may never apply to them in the future? There should be choice and flexibility.

Beyond that, how else can we get students to demonstrate that they are already working towards honing a professional skill, interest, area of focus, or aesthetic and technical study? What other option is there than to ask to learn and absorb everything in just three years, instead of focusing on a fleeting collection of modules, ad hoc projects, and hastily realized finales? With the coming uprising of Generation Z, can the tiresome bureaucracy of traditional university education really meet the needs of a new generation of creative talent in practice?

Instead of emailing the university’s job search department and asking them about these sensitive topics, it would be better to make contact with them and build relationships to help each other. The event was an opportunity for fashion students, people wanting to enter the fashion industry from other sectors, and fashionistas of all kinds to recognize the social realities they are now facing. For a fashion graduate, there is no longer a choice us, how can we help fashion graduates have more of their own choices while putting down our posture and allowing everyone to look at their designs with humility.

The platform I can currently offer is a start-up designer buying site to sell fashion pieces, by working with UAL talented graduates. I would also like to showcase this website at the festival at a low to mid-range price point, down to earth price.

Objectives

1. To showcase the range of pricing, style, and taste of the website to be launched, and to allow visitors to add their contact details for subsequent launches.

2. To make contact with UAL graduate job hunting department through this event and give me more resources for graduates.

3. To help the best fashion graduate students get more exposure to their work and gain more financial benefits and autonomy.

Survey methodology

A group of 19 people was organized and I designed the questionnaire to be administered to fashion graduates about whether they were stressed about employment after graduation and whether they would like to have additional courses on business and pattern-cutting etc. aimed at post-graduation employment orientation during the study in UAL. They also talked about their views on the current state of the fashion industry, their feeling on their current situation and their future, and how they felt about adding business courses to their university major and whether they would like to add various electives that they could use for their future career needs.

73.7% of people had a direction regarding their plans after graduation, while the other 26.3% were unsure. And all of them and the fashion graduates around them is very anxious about the topic of their future career after graduation.

Intervention 2
Testing the FUSL(fashion uniform symbol) group on how they feel if adding a business option to their curriculum.
 
I invited members of the FUSL group to read a business course article and mark the key points, express or write their thoughts on the reading and what they learned from it in a given day, both offline and give me feedback about what they learned, to see if they were interested in business.
 
Intervention 3
In the FUSL group test how they feel about the addition of a window display course. They can do a window display design in one day to use their favorite brand.
 
I find someone who was not previously in fashion but is now a de facto practitioner to talk to, and I found someone who had studied fine art and is now the head of a shoe design brand. I found out what motivated her to switch from her previous profession to the fashion industry and interviewed her about whether she would choose to study fashion if she had the option to go to school in the future, and he answered in the negative.

In comparison to intervention2&3, all respondents chose to do only window display design drawings, and after I sent them the request, they gave me the designs very quickly and they all did well. That shows they are good at designing and making art. They are also happy to make window design an optional course during their undergraduate years.

But fashion graduates no longer have almost no choice of companies. Despite the fact that British universities and fashion schools are reputed to be the best in the world, too many graduates leave school unsatisfied. According to annual satisfaction surveys, career paths are not adequately explained, technical courses like pattern cutting are missing, and business training is not even covered. In an interview with The Guardian, Sarah Mauer (chief critic of Vogue.com) said: “A huge skills gap is emerging – many universities are no longer cutting patterns, and design houses are desperate for skilled pattern cutters and paying good salaries. People design a collection, but it’s the technicians who sew it.”

If more and more young designers want to set up on their own and create their own labels, then there is no doubt that fashion education needs to be overhauled. A degree in fashion needs time to evolve, the question itself, challenge and reflect. Why does the final product have to be the ultimate collection that students spend hundreds to thousands of pounds to achieve? To simply mimic outdated industry structures, seasonal and traditional fashion presentations, and rules that may never apply to them in the future? There should be choice and flexibility.

Beyond that, how else can we get students to demonstrate that they are already working towards honing a professional skill, interest, area of focus, or aesthetic and technical study? What other option is there than to ask to learn and absorb everything in just three years, instead of focusing on a fleeting collection of modules, ad hoc projects, and hastily realized finales? With the coming uprising of Generation Z, can the tiresome bureaucracy of traditional university education really meet the needs of a new generation of creative talent in practice?

Interviews.

Interviews with fashion students, professors, fashion industry professionals, fashion graduates, etc., about the current state of fashion, as well as discussions about the willingness to add business courses, and research about the direction of fashion graduates seeking employment. Or a free session on how schools can find better ways to help to graduate students deal with the psychological problems they face after graduation.

Interviews with UAL graduate support & career support:

1. Have ever received any emails or questions or answers about students having difficulty finding a job or being anxious about the difficulties they are experiencing?

2. Has it ever occurred there or has anyone suggested giving fashion students a little more course placement in order to fill the industry saturation and give students more possibilities in the direction of future employment options?

3. As I have studied at UAL for a long time, I am well aware of UAL’s mode of teaching. Has there been any thought of adding optional sub-specialties for students to choose from, in addition to their main studies? 

I contacted UAL Graduate Support and careers-support :

Waiting for a reply…

Transition:

But when I mailed Ual graduate support and career support to ask if anything was being done, they replied that they couldn’t answer my question and that sensitive information was involved and would need to be approved by the ethics committee. This shows that indeed the University is in a quandary about this matter.

Change Point

Instead of emailing the university’s job search department and asking them about these sensitive topics, it would be better to make contact with them and build relationships to help each other. The event was an opportunity for fashion students, people wanting to enter the fashion industry from other sectors, and fashionistas of all kinds to recognize the social realities they are now facing. For a fashion graduate, there is no longer a choice us, how can we help fashion graduates have more of their own choices while putting down our posture and allowing everyone to look at their designs with humility.

Research questions

How can fashion graduates link fashion with other disciplines to help their have transferable skills to uncertainty in their early career?

To provide a platform for fashion graduates to use their fashion uniform symbols to combine with other uniform symbols to address employment issues.

Introduction

As a fashion graduate, I have seen through the news and interviews with fashion graduates that it is difficult for fashion graduates to find the jobs they want and that the whole fashion industry is on the inside. Many brands and fashion agencies often squeeze recent graduates, which puts pressure on fashion graduates.

Every time graduate show season takes centre stage, thousands of fashion graduates from the UK and other countries are competing for designer positions that fashion houses can barely find. The question of whether we are producing too many fashion designers is a tiresome one, and the answer is far too complex. There are around 4,000 fashion graduates each year, but only 500 jobs, so the most straightforward answer is yes. However, the idea of a ‘vocational degree’ is wrongly outdated. Today, fashion designers are expected to be multi-faceted creatives, and while fashion degrees and institutions can certainly provide designers with more entrepreneurial skills, the fashion industry is a constantly changing beast. Young designers are often told to keep up with the spread of fashion, science, ethics and business, not to mention the vital creative and technical skills needed to take a design from concept to finished formation and completion.

Despite the fact that UK universities and fashion schools are reputed to be among the best in the world, too many graduates leave school unsatisfied. According to annual satisfaction surveys, career paths are not adequately explained, technical courses like pattern cutting are missing, and business training is not even covered. In an interview with The Guardian, Sarah Mower (chief critic of Vogue.com) said: “A huge skills gap is emerging – many universities are no longer cutting patterns, and design houses are desperate for skilled pattern cutters and paying good salaries. People design a collection, but it’s the technicians who sew it.”

If more and more young designers want to set up on their own and create their own labels, then there is no doubt that fashion education needs to be overhauled. A degree in fashion needs time to evolve, question itself, challenge and reflect. Why does the final product have to be the ultimate collection that students spend hundreds to thousands of pounds to achieve? To simply mimic outdated industry structures, seasonal and traditional fashion presentations and rules that may never apply to them in the future? There should be choice and flexibility.

Beyond that, how else can we get students to demonstrate that they are already working towards honing a professional skill, interest, area of focus or aesthetic and technical study? What other option is there than to ask to learn and absorb everything in just three years, instead of focusing on a fleeting collection of modules, ad hoc projects and hastily realised finales? With the impending uprising of Generation Z, can the tiresome bureaucracy of traditional university education really meet the needs of a new generation of creative talent in practice?

For graduating fashion students, the logo of the school uniform is a great platform to give more meaning to their uniforms. Combine the symbols they carry with other elements.

The consistency and uniformity of school uniforms can act as a symbol for a group to have the same labeling symbol, which can be tangible or intangible. (Uniform=same, same symbols=uniform symbols.)

My experience, research and feedback led me to a question :

How can fashion graduates find out what they want to do in the future through a unified symbol?

(How can something be changed by combining a number of different uniform symbols to make it a new possibility for fashion graduates?)

My goal is to offer fashion graduates more possibilities for their future, rather than feeling anxious and confused. Something that can be done for graduates is to suggest that schools create additional courses applicable to vacant fashion industry positions to help fashion graduates face and match jobs.

(More research is needed on where fashion graduates are looking for jobs.)

Investigate whether CSM have courses or lessons for the business

Methodology

Read numerous books and articles on ……

Survey methodology

Questionnaire to fashion graduates on

whether there is pressure to find a job after graduation

Whether they would like to have additional courses on business and pattern making, etc., for post-graduation career paths during their studies

Focus groups

Organise a group discussion with 8-10 people

What they think about their current situation and their future

How do you feel about the introduction of business courses in schools?

Whether you would like to have more courses on business

Interviews

Interviews with fashion students, professors, fashion industry professionals, fashion graduates, etc. to discuss whether they would like to add business courses or if the school could find a better way to help students deal with psychological issues after graduation.

Intervention 1

My first intervention was to ask the fashion graduates to think about and take a photo of a fashion item that best represented them, to embellish the photo, to combine this with others in any way they could, to use their imagination and to see the end result.

The participants’ perception of their own personal fashion style, the use of photography as a symbol of unity, and the combination of the two, allows for the creation of a social media account.

Through this group, more people can be cultivated to join.

Through this Intervention, I can create a fashion group. in the process, they can also learn that there are other interests they can tap into besides fashion. I interviewed a blogger who managed to combine the two unifying symbols of fashion and self-publishing, and he made money by advertising cosmetics and clothing.

Intervention 2

Test how they feel about adding a business course at the Uniform Symbol Society.

*contact the experts

Contact the uni career search department

UK immigration experts

Successful brand entrepreneur (an appointment has been made to meet with a British lingerie brand entrepreneur).

Reflection & Analysis of Findings

Plan

Create a self-employment website by organising group members

Through the subsequent development of this group

Conclusion