By Katharine Dorny Program Coordinator, Global Fashion Management
One of the most frequent questions applicants ask about the Global Fashion Management program is what graduates do with their new skills after completing the program. The answer is as varied as graduates’ individual circumstances and career goals. They can continue at their current jobs and earn promotions within their companies, change their focus by taking on an advanced role with another organization, or begin entrepreneurial ventures based on the capstone projects they’ve completed in the program.
But in recent years a new path has emerged: using GFM degrees as a springboard to PhD programs and opportunities to teach in higher education. Take Nimet Degirmencioglu, who, after graduating GFM 2010 and co-founding a fair-trade fashion label based on Indian textiles with a GFM classmate, was encouraged to pursue a doctorate at North Carolina State by GFM professor Praveen Chaudhry. She’s now a researcher and teacher, focused on fair trade, social entrepreneurship, and digital marketing–disciplines she was originally introduced to at GFM.
GFM alumna Nimet Degirmencioglu
Or consider Dave Loranger (GFM 2011), a luxury retailer for two decades prior to GFM, who earned his PhD at Iowa State, where he based his dissertation research on Scottish kiltmakers’ craft. Dave is now an assistant professor at the Sacred Heart’s Jack Welch College of Business & Technology, where he teaches marketing and fashion business–fields he knows well through both his earlier professional experience and his academic pursuits at GFM and Iowa State.
GFM alumnus Dave Loranger
GFM alumna Caryn Pang
Dave Loranger’s GFM 2011 classmate Caryn Pang also wound up at Iowa State in the Apparel, Merchandising, and Design doctoral program. Now finishing her dissertation, Caryn has taught at FIT and other institutions, while also taking on consulting projects. In her dissertation, she looks at the challenges of American mall culture and future applications of the “live, shop, play” concept–combining retail with residences and entertainment venues–to create a prospective new economic paradigm, replacing a staid business model.
GFM alumna Shanti Amalanathan
Yet another GFM 2011 class member, Shanti Amalanathan, followed what has become a well-established path to doctoral studies at Iowa State, where she is interested in undertaking a dissertation focused on culture and social justice. And a more recent GFM graduate, Colleen Salonga, class of 2020, who earned her undergraduate degree at the U.S. Naval Academy and came to GFM after working in supply chain for the Navy, also made her way to Iowa State, where she is considering examining the circular economy from a supply-chain perspective for her dissertation.
GFM alumna Colleen Salonga at the GFM Paris Seminar, April 2019
GFM salutes the success of all its graduates, from those who continue with their original companies or assume managerial roles with other organizations, to those who initiate entrepreneurial ventures–many of which represent market-based applications of the research students began in their GFM capstones. Now that grads like Nimet, Dave, Caryn, Shanti, and Colleen have undertaken a GFM-to-doctoral studies academic trajectory, yet more rewarding venues have become available for students to display the benefits of the hands-on learning they gained through GFM.
The PhD programs pursued by growing numbers of grads qualify as a new evolutionary phase for a GFM program that has long provided an innovative, industry-driven education for its students. These doctoral-level educational opportunities not only engender new career horizons for GFM grads, their research-intensive nature ultimately involves creating, developing, and executing novel ideas and strategies for the business of fashion–innovations that characterize the progressive essence of the GFM program, and that serve as the crux of an industry whose practices increasingly represent pace-setting advances within the global economy.
By Katharine Dorny Program Coordinator, Global Fashion Management
In the Fall of 2019, Global Fashion Management at FIT officially marked the beginning of our partnership with CENTRO in Mexico City by welcoming fourteen students, along with two of their professors, from the inaugural CENTRO cohort to the New York Seminar in September. In CENTRO’s joining of GFM, a fourth semester has been added to the GFM curriculum and our FIT cohort will travel to Mexico City for an international seminar during their final semester in spring 2022.
CENTRO in Mexico City. Photo courtesy of CENTRO.
CENTRO was founded in Mexico City in 2004 as an institution for film, television, and digital media. Since then they have expanded to include a variety of design disciplines, art, and business at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Most recently, they will be launching Mexico’s first postgraduate program in Food Design and Innovation, starting in January of 2021. CENTRO’s main philosophy as an institution revolves around, as they say, furthering the “professionalization of creativity.” With a focus on research, innovation, and working with industry partners, CENTRO’s pedagogical concept mirrors that of FIT. Student work has been internationally recognized through institutions such as MOMA, the Venice Film Festival, Wanted Design NYC, and the D&AD Student Awards in London. Domestically, they participate in Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Mx, Design Week Mx, and Abierto Mexicano de Diseño.
CENTRO Global Fashion Management students presenting to industry experts. Photo courtesy of CENTRO.
In identifying CENTRO’s faculty, co-founder and CENTRO President Gina Diez Barroso de Franklin said, “We think it’s very important to teach by example.” Faculty for the Global Fashion Management program at CENTRO come from industry. They represent business owners, founders, CEOs, creative directors, and consultants, and are experts from careers in branding, manufacturing, public relations, management, and design. In addition, the faculty includes researchers and PhDs, helping students navigate research projects with critical thinking and innovation. Guest speakers are prominently featured in the curriculum and students have learned from executives representing companies such as Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Nike, Kate Spade, and Fabletics.
CENTRO’s campus, designed by Enrique Norten, is the only campus in Mexico with LEED Platinum certification. The unconventional and intriguing design of the campus- with its green roofs, recycled materials, eccentric crisscrossing lines, and expansive windows- is a natural incubator for inspiring design students. Sustainability is a key tenet of the GFM curriculum at CENTRO, as it is at FIT.
CENTRO in Mexico City. Photo courtesy of CENTRO.CENTRO in Mexico City. Photo courtesy of CENTRO.
GFM students find each international seminar provides an entirely unique experience as we travel across countries and continents, and the Mexico City Seminar will be no different. The Mexico City Seminar will offer students an opportunity to understand the apparel industry from the perspective of Mexican and Latin American culture, in a country where contemporary design, modern manufacturing and legacy converge. Topics will include heritage as a tool to build new opportunities, local versus global production, new developments and innovation in the creative industries, and inspiration from other forward-thinking fields in the country such as the food industry where there’s an important alignment with weaving materials and natural dyes. Classroom lectures will focus on trade and tariffs, the impact and operation of grey economies, and innovations in sustainability, as well as opportunities to engage with experts from across the university to understand the value that is created through a transdisciplinary approach to fashion.
A student exhibition at CENTRO. Photo courtesy of CENTRO.
Site visits will include some of the country’s most relevant manufacturing and craftsmanship sites, such as traditional textile making in Oxaca and Puebla, denim production in Torreón, or footwear and leather good manufacturing in León and Guadalajara. Likewise, non-fashion related site visits will help students better understand Mexico’s cultural production.
We are looking forward to FIT’s first Mexico City Seminar in the spring of 2022.
CC Salonga, GFM class of 2020, joined the program from a career as a U.S. Navy officer where she specialized in logistics and inventory management for the Defense Department. She entered GFM with an interest in retail operations and will continue her studies in the fall at Iowa State University’s doctoral program in the department of Apparel, Merchandising & Design. But in the meantime, CC is back in Washington, dedicating her military expertise to the country’s most crucial work of the moment. The GFM program takes great pride in her academic and professional accomplishments and wish her success in this critical phase of her career.
CC Salonga at FEMA HQ.
When I learned that supply chain consultants were needed to support the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) efforts towards COVID-19, I reached out. Within a few days I found myself at the Federal Emergency Management Agency Headquarters (FEMA HQ) operations center where I assisted with tracking supply requisitions for the Strategic National Stockpile. HHS and FEMA coordinate efforts with local emergency response officials to provide supplies and address medical needs.
The team I worked with specializes in disaster relief and tracks requirements and incoming and outgoing inventory on commodities such as ventilators, test kits, pharmaceuticals, and Federal Medical Systems which are deployable 250- and 50-bed sets with bathroom and shower capabilities. We pulled information from multiple supply chains and different tracking systems to include reviewing thousands of emails requesting support for the states, tribes and territories. We also tracked deliveries to designated sites — primarily convention centers, but also school gyms, warehouses, hospitals, and national guard sites.
As pharmaceuticals requirements gained momentum, I was moved to an HHS mission support building in Frederick, MD where there is a warehouse that holds some national stockpile stores for pharmaceuticals, devices and supplies designated for disaster and health emergencies. There, I helped the staff with inventory and administrative efforts to get caches ready for deployment.
The needs of HHS continue to change, and I am now in a third location, the HHS operations center close to FEMA HQ. I still support resource allocation efforts but also have the ability to observe videoconferences involving multiple groups within the government and the military. I have an even greater appreciation for the monumental and collective efforts of private industry and the government. Having spent some time in the military, I have found it rewarding to continue serving in times of need.
By Michael Battista Industry Coordinator to the Global Fashion Management Program
After the Hong Kong Seminar, GFM traveled to Japan for site visits and executive lectures to learn more about the apparel and fashion industry from the Japanese point of view. Here, a student is explores the visual merchandising of Isetan Department Store in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
As a complement to the recent Hong Kong Seminar and its focus on apparel production and the Asian markets, GFM continued onward to Japan for an optional two-day segment of executive lectures and site visits. Here, the scope of our attention expanded to include merchandising techniques at Isetan Department Store, the ethos of home goods and lifestyle brand Muji, a presentation by renowned textile designer Reiko Sudo of the innovative textile corporation Nuno, and a visit to the headquarters of Toyota [cue the abrupt screech of a record stopping]. You may be wondering what a car manufacturer has to do with Global Fashion Management. The answer is actually, quite a lot.
Toyota is one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. Before these Japanese cars dominated the planet’s roads, it was a family business known as Toyoda Loom Works. Established in 1907, it became an innovator and inventor of a number of textile looms and cotton spinning machines, improving on the speed, quality, and efficiency of mechanical textile production, and ultimately developing the technology towards automation. The company headquarters in Nagoya, Japan hosts a museum dedicated to exhibiting this history and its pivotal transition to car manufacturing on its original founding site.
Before Toyota was the company that we know of today, it was Toyoda Loom Works, a manufacturer of innovative textile looms that improved the productivity and efficiency of textile production. Here, GFM students are in the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology, a museum at the original founding site of the company in Nagoya, Japan, dedicated to exhibiting this history.
The significance of Toyota’s contribution to the apparel industry transcends its historical role in loom development and textile production. The company pioneered a highly efficient and agile manufacturing methodology, known as the Toyota Production System, that serves as the foundation for the Fast Fashion models leveraged by H&M and Inditex (the retail group behind Zara), the second and third most valuable apparel companies in the world. Additionally, Toyota’s principals of flexibility, waste reduction, and efficiency are the foundation of the Eton System, used in Esquel’s vertical production plant in Guangdong. During our China seminar, students observed this flexible material handling system, which is designed to eliminate manual handling and transportation, resulting in an increase in production.
While GFM Students explore the fundamentals of agile, efficient, responsive, and risk minimizing production models like the Toyota Production System in the program’s Production Management and Supply Chain course, there’s nothing quite like seeing the application of a methodology with your own eyes. The site visit to the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology, and then later to Toyota Motor Corporation’s Tsutsumi Assembly Plant, offered an additional opportunity for the concepts covered in the classroom to spring to life.
The museum’s textile machinery pavilion is a hangar-sized space of over 11,000 square feet filled with nearly 100 pieces of equipment from its archive—many of which are functional—that showcases the evolution of cotton spinning and textile looms from the industrial revolution of the 18th century to today. Docents lead us through the exhibition, charting the historical progression of these production processes and stopping to demonstrate the machinery along the way. As we proceeded, we witnessed the evolution of technology, speed, and complexity, from wooden machines powered by hand to those forged by steel and guided by computer.
Inside the Toyota Museum’s Textile Pavilion, a docent holds a wooden shuttle and explains the innovations of this hand-and-foot-powered wooden loom model invented in 1891 by Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works.While it no longer operates as Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Today, Toyota Industries Corporation is still active in the production of industrial textile machinery. Here, GFM students witness a photograph transcribed to cloth right before their eyes with this demonstration of a contemporary jacquard loom.
Compared to the more contemporary and dizzyingly fast machines used by factories today, the earlier wooden looms from the beginning of the 20th century have parts that move at speeds more amenable for the human eye to process. For those of us on the tour without a technical background in textiles, it was an opportunity to better see and understand the mechanical process of a loom shuttle moving yarn back and forth between the vertical warp threads to create fabric. It was truly an ahamoment for many of us, with the cadence of clicking heard from students and looms alike.
Additional wings of the museum are dedicated to the company’s transition from Toyoda Loom Works to the Toyota that we know today. The most salient changes resulted from the generational shift in management from father to son, and a culturally astute rebranding that altered the company’s name to allude to “good fortune” in the written Japanese language.
By bus, we continued our site visit to the Toyota Motor Corporation Assembly Plant in nearby Toyota City. We ascended to a network of catwalks perched above the production lines. From here, we bore witness to a focused and coordinated effort of man and machine. There was a great deal of activity. Workers were staged across various points of the production lines, diligently and swiftly transforming frames of steel into cars by methodically adding its components. Small robotic carts tugged bins filled with parts to their respective stations. There was a symphony of coded tones and musical notes to indicate production status, delays or errors. This is where we could see and hear the Toyota Production System’s deployment of two of its core philosophical principles:
Just-in-Time: where the supply follows the demand, this is defined by Toyota as “making only what is needed, when it is needed, and in the amount needed.” Each car we saw on the production line, represented a sale and customer order for that specific model.
Jidoka: a Japanese word at the intersection of automation and human intelligence has come to embody a quality control methodology to prevent defects throughout the workflow. Assembly workers stop the production line if a problem arises or is detected before the car moves forward to the next step in the manufacturing process.
Toyota’s growth and capture of the global market share is due to its development and refinement of these core principals (among others), which have enabled it to maximize efficiency and minimize waste (waste, in this case, being defined as overproduction).
The history of this company’s success across generations and industries illustrates the value of internationalism and open trade. Both generations of Toyoda leadership were informed and inspired by site visits abroad, building their respective global empires on the foundation of their impressions of best practices and innovations, and ultimately improving on them. Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of the company’s first incarnation, visited the global textile centers of his day, touring fabric mills in the northeastern U.S. and Manchester, England. His son, Kiichiro Toyoda, who transformed the company into an automobile manufacturer in 1937, went to see the Ford operation in Detroit at the onset of its development of the Assembly Line Method, a transformative innovation in manufacturing at the time.
For a grand finale, we witnessed the mechanical ballet of the welding machines fortifying the frames of cars-to-be, rhythmically moving to the beat of their own programming. Many large mechanical arms swiftly and articulately moved in concert across the body of a single car. They stretched, contracted, and rotated around each other, sending bursts of orange sparks into the air. At this point on the catwalk, we stood entranced by the performance, which would end within a minute’s time, only to be repeated on the next car frame in line. The speed and scale of the elegant process was both impressive and humbling. Many jaws had fallen ajar at the sight of it all. As we stood there above the manufacturing line, I could do nothing but appreciate that after nearly 80 years from the company’s inception, we were witnessing the fulfillment of a vision of automation, efficiency, and synergy of human and machine. And so I wondered, what potential advancements might lie on the horizon of the apparel industry’s future, and what visions have yet to come?
Sparks fly inside the Toyota Manufacturing Plant as robots weld the frames of cars together. Photo source: Toyota.
GFM students created short documentary films to showcase the creative perspectives and processes of four fashion designers: (clockwise from top) Garance Broca-Husson and Benoist Husson of Monsieur Lacenaire, Gustavo Lins, Jérôme Dreyfuss, and Anne Valérie Hash on campus at Institute Français de la Mode (center) and in the designer’s studios.
It should come as no surprise to our alums that the watchword of this year’s Paris Seminar was – drum roll please – creativity. In discussing fashion, and especially French fashion, we would be remiss if we didn’t touch upon the creative process, and I imagine that this subject was a main focus of the seminars of years past. What was different this year, however, was the way in which this all-important subject was approached and – shall we say – deconstructed.
The centerpiece of this year’s Paris seminar was a film project, in which students from Paris, Hong Kong, and New York collaborated in the development, filming, editing, and presentation of a short documentary on the creative process of four Paris-based designers: Garance Broca, Jérôme Dreyfuss, Anne Valérie Hash, and Gustavo Lins.
This exercise was preceded by the screening of the documentary film Dreamers, which was shown at the 2012 Venice Biennale, and follows the creative process and personal story of 11 film directors and screenwriters, including Michel Gondry, Akiva Goldsman, James Gray, and Guillermo Ariaga. Director Noëlle Deschamps was kind enough to present her film and to assist as one of several filmmaking coaches throughout the seminar.
The launch of the seminar began at L’Arlequin cinéma with the a screening of Dreamers, a documentary directed by Noëlle Deschamps, and the inspiration for the seminar’s case study assignment.
Our viewing of the film set the stage for what was to follow, as we broke up into our first meetings and started to explore our own creative styles and individual aesthetic proclivities in the context of our groups. To help us get to know each other, IFM GFM Director Véronique Schilling was prescient enough to organize a “five senses workshop” through faculty member and aesthetic specialist Jayne Curé. As a part of this workshop, we were asked to clear our heads and make a list of things or experiences that were important to us in the context of the five senses, freely associating between sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. We then shared our individual aesthetic impressions among our groups to determine common themes. Everyone in my group, for example, touched upon the theme of the sky in one way or another, and so images of the sky became an important element of our short film.
Meanwhile, as we got to know each other and discussed potential angles and editorial points of view, each designer was kind enough to speak to the entire class about their work as well as their creative process and personal journey. In this way, students were able to get a sense of each designer’s unique character, which would later be on display in our short films.
Through a creative team building workshop developed by IFM faculty Jayne Curé, student teams articulated an aesthetic point of view as a visual guideline for creating their documentary films.
First up was Jérôme Dreyfuss, of the eponymous handbag collection. Jérôme let his instantly lovable personality and sense of humor shine through. To set the stage, he recounted how he decided at age 12 that he would be a fashion designer after watching an interview of French chanteur Serge Gainsbourg, who said that he became a musician in order to seduce women. I guess Jérôme began to think about strategy at a young age: realizing that he couldn’t sing, he decided then and there that becoming a fashion designer might be the next best way to appeal to the fairer sex. Despite such humor and good cheer, it was clear that Jérôme is motivated by a sincere desire to help people. He is inspired by real women, and their real, everyday needs. One of the short films showed how Jérôme – who rides his scooter across Paris to work every day – is perpetually on the verge of an accident because he is constantly turning around to watch women as they pass. He is interested in what they wear and how they conduct themselves, but most importantly he wants to know how they carry their lives around Paris in their handbags. He is constantly tinkering with his designs, so as to make them more intuitive, more practical, and more useful to real women. This concern shines through in the finished product – Jérôme’s bags are light, versatile, beautifully made, practical, and above all, effortlessly elegant.
Jérôme Dreyfuss with his custom leather hides inside the showroom-cum-atelier of his namesake bag and accessory brand.
Second in the lineup was Garance Broca – designer of the knitwear brand Monsieur Lacenaire – who was accompanied by co-owner, brand manager, and husband, Benoist Husson. Monsieur Lacenaire is an extremely playful, humorous, and creative menswear line, whose designs are restricted only by the technical limits of the knitwear medium itself. Garance is so passionate about her craft that she studied and learned Italian so that she could communicate with the knitwear artisans and technicians in Italy, where much of her line is produced. Such seriousness and dedication has served her well. Throughout her presentation, she shared prototypes, stitch patterns, and yarn samples in different fibers and gauges so that we got a real sense of the complex art of knitwear design. Garance also has a playful side, however. The theme of her presentation was the process of ‘creative ping pong,’ whereby she is able to build and expand upon her ideas by constantly bouncing them off her husband and business partner Benoist. One of our documentary films thus focused on the dialectic between Garance and Benoist, both as a way to illustrate Garance’s creative process as well as show the playful characteristics of Monsieur Lacenaire himself.
Garance Broca and Benoist Husson, are serious about their playful knitwear brand, Monsieur Lacenaire.
Our third designer – Brazilian native Gustavo Lins – represented an interesting contrast to the careful planning required by the knitwear collections of Monsieur Lacenaire. Formally trained as an architect and bringing an undeniable structuralism to his craft, Gustavo Lins has worked for years in high fashion and has come to embody the spirit of a true couturier. He doesn’t read fashion magazines or follow the latest trends when thinking about his next collection. He goes straight to the mannequin and begins to drape and physically construct his garments, at times allowing his initial intentions to be influenced by the spontaneous emergence of an unexpected drape or silhouette. Gustavo turned out to be a touchingly open and sincere person. While he was busily constructing a beautiful garment before our eyes, he candidly and unselfconsciously shared details and memories from his personal life, thus allowing us insight to the person he has become today. Many in the audience were visibly touched by his openness. The filmmakers dedicated to Gustavo were able to tap into and expand upon this theme in their films, showing how Gustavo had emerged from personal and professional tragedy to become the fearless individual he is – a person who is capable of uniting people through his force of character.
Designer Gustavo Lins demonstrates his couture draping techniques while waxing poetic on his technique and inspiration.
Finally, Anne Valérie Hash gave a highly original presentation which was a fitting conclusion to our foray into the personal creative process. A classically trained dressmaker and couturier, native Parisienne Anne Valérie gave a lecture on the themes of construction and deconstruction, in which she disassembled a pair of men’s trousers in order to reconstruct a dress. Deconstruction – whether it be of a garment, of a motivation, or of a memory – is an important part of her creative process. Anne Valérie’s previous collections have included items of personal significance gifted to her by friends – Alber Elbaz’ sky blue pajamas, for example, or Tilda Swinton’s much loved Vivienne Westwood t-shirt. Such items are taken apart in order to build something new, personal, and original. In this way, beloved possessions are given new life. As a part of her presentation, each of us were asked to think about what we would most like to deconstruct – whether it be a garment, a memory, a photograph, or a book – and what we would hope to learn as a result. This exercise helped us to understand our deep motivations, much as Anne Valérie herself was able to gain insight to her own creative process in an interview captured on film by our students. As a Jewish women, she was recounting the Jewish tradition of the cutting of garments to signify mourning over the death of a loved one. As she was saying this, she realized that this tradition was reflected in her own work. Cutting – and deconstruction – is for Anne Valérie a way to pay homage to the events – both sorrowful and joyful – in each of our lives.
Anne Valérie Hash, a classic Parisian couturier shared her ethos of “deconstruction as an act of construction.”
When Noëlle Deschamps was describing the inspiration for her film Dreamers, she recounted how her goal – to document the creative process of her favorite filmmakers – was initially met with skepticism and bemusement. How can you make a film about creation itself? Her detractors worried that it was simply too esoteric and abstract a subject to be successfully portrayed on film. She ploughed ahead however – she had faith in her vision – and eventually all of the pieces fell into place and she was able to make her dream come to life.
On second thought, is this really an accurate description of what happened? To say that the pieces simply fell into place does the creative process a disservice by making it appear effortless. In point of fact, Ms. Deschamps must have fought very hard for her film. Through hard work, willpower, and the courage of her conviction, she was able to overcome the objections of her detractors.
Each of us has an innate creative ability, and the 2017 Paris Seminar was very successful in demonstrating the process of creation. Despite this, the most important thing that I learned from Ms. Deschamps – and from each of the designers who shared their lives with us – was that creativity is not enough, in and of itself. It takes courage, tenacity, and discipline to bring your dreams to fruition. For me, this seminar was more than anything a manifestation of the human spirit and a glorious celebration of our artistic differences. Like our four disparate designers, each of us is formed by our own unique experiences, and each of us is therefore inimitable. Perhaps it is not exactly topical, but in reflecting on this experience, I am reminded of a passage which struck me when I first read it, and which has stayed with me ever since. In describing his theory of evolution in The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin said: “there is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Let us therefore always celebrate our differences – these “endless forms most beautiful” – and the indomitable spirit which make us who we are – each of us unique, each of us irreplaceable.
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Below, “It’s Playtime” is the short video my group created to showcase the creative perspective and process of Parisian knitwear brand Monsieur Lacenaire. Among the eight different team videos created, this was the final jury selection for “Best Director.”
By Michael Battista Industry Coordinator to the Global Fashion Management Program
Unloaded container ships in Victoria Harbour, as viewed from Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is a city that bustles with over 7 million people. Skyscrapers that are achieved with bamboo scaffolding rise from the mountainous terrain of a bay overlooking the South China Sea. Container ships filled with goods destined for the world’s ports dot the horizon. This sets the scene for the third and final seminar of the Global Fashion Management program, held in collaboration with the Institute of Textiles and Clothing of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Hong Kong is a hub for retail: filled with boutiques, shopping malls, and specialized districts. Street markets with literal names like “Jade Market” and “Sneaker Street” are destinations in and of themselves. It’s a place where luxury brands have – until recently – enjoyed great success. There are more Louis Vuitton and Prada stores in Hong Kong than in Paris and Milan. When immersed in the modernity of this city, it’s hard to imagine its humble beginnings as a small fishing village.
Hong Kong is filled with luxury shopping opportunities. Pictured above, in the Kowloon district, is one of eight Louis Vuitton stores in Hong Kong. There are more LV stores in Hong Kong than in Paris.Tai O, a traditional fishing village of stilted huts on the outskirts of Hong Kong, stems the tide of modernization and offers a glimpse into the city’s humble beginnings.
The seminar began with the positioning of Hong Kong as a gateway to Asia. According to visiting lecturer Pauline Hsia, American, European, and British brands come to Hong Kong to test their success with the Asian market before expanding further into the continent. Dana Craig, SVP of Supply Chain – Asia at Tory Burch informed us that the brand’s highest volume of sales, worldwide is at their Hong Kong airport location. Notwithstanding this success, Mr. Craig points out that building brand awareness remains a challenge to expansion in Asia.
While success can prove elusive to foreign brands, a strategy of testing and brand building is exhibited in the efforts of Canadian brand Lululemon. The Business of Fashion reports:“The company has stores in Hong Kong but currently only operates showrooms in Shanghai and Beijing, and sells online in China via Tmall [an e-commerce platform]. ‘We start with our showroom model, where our team can build brand awareness, test product, create authentic relationships and learn what is important to a community before we open a permanent store,’ says [SVP, Asia Pacific at Lululemon,] Ken Lee.”
A Lululemon fitness event in Beijing, as reported by the Business of Fashion on 10/10/2016.
The region now known as Hong Kong has been the gateway to China for centuries. The Portuguese maintained trading outposts there in the 1500s; and the Dutch and French would follow suit. By the early 1800’s, the British East India Company had a growing presence to feed Europe’s appetite for Chinese silk, porcelain, and tea. By 1839 it would become the epicenter of the Opium Wars – a humiliating history for both the victor and defeated – spanning two decades and ending with the cessation of Hong Kong to the British Crown.
A painting of a battle: one of many, collectively referred to as “the Opium Wars.” Oil on canvas, circa 1843: “Nemesis Destroying the Chinese War Junks in Anson’s Bay, Jan 7th 1841” by Edward Duncan.
Though the sovereignty of Hong Kong has since returned to China, it continues its tradition as the commercial gateway to the world’s most populous country. The opportunity for growth in connecting the East and West is not one-sided. While western brands have their sights on expansion into Asia, Chinese brands also seek expansion beyond the Great Wall. This seminar’s case study brand, Hidy NG, sought a complete brand audit, and a defined strategy for growth and westward expansion. Students worked in teams to articulate a brand identity, craft a distribution plan, and develop product lifecycle recommendations. The culminating presentations demonstrated rigor, analysis, and professionalism comparable to a boutique consultancy.
Hidy NG (bottom, left), Creative Director of the namesake brand, debriefs student on their assignment for the case study at the brand’s showroom inside of their manufacturing facility in Hong Kong.
By the time the students travel to Hong Kong, they are nearing the completion of the program. They have spent the last year-and-a-half cultivating business acumen through the curriculum; and have expanded their world view through their work with diverse colleagues from around the globe. As a result, they’re able to offer insights with clarity, precision, and confidence. So when the students presented their recommendations for the case study brand, Hidy NG was listening.
Students work in multicultural teams across three continents to prepare for and present their recommendations for the Hong Kong Seminar case study brand. Hidy NG (bottom, right) responds to each presentation.
By Bob Greene, MS Leadership and Team Development Coach and Consultant
GFM students developing their “teaming” skills in a workshop during the New York Seminar.
Students in the Graduate Fashion Management (GFM) program are developing as leaders who can innovate successfully in the ever-changing global fashion industry. Today’s and tomorrow’s leaders need to be successful not only when problems are routine or primarily technical, but in uncharted territory, where learning and creativity are essential. Ronald Heifetz and his colleagues talk about the need for leadership that can successfully meet “adaptive challenges” in addition to more “technical problems.” In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, they write that “[i]n an increasingly flat, globalized third-millenium world, where innovation occurs so quickly, just having the best product at any moment in time is not a sustainable plan.” (p.21) Companies and leaders are being challenged to shift how they have operated in the past and embrace a new emphasis on relationship-building and engaging with complexity and change.
Amy Edmondson suggests that “teaming” embodies the mindset and skills required for the global marketplace. In contrast to previous perspectives that saw teams as static and long-lasting, Edmondson emphasizes today’s workforce may participate on numerous teams that change their membership over time for different projects. Edmondson talks about teaming as a verb, and that people must learn team skills that they can carry from team to team, project to project. And, of course, many of these projects will be adaptive challenges rather than routine, technical, problems, so it’s vital that learning is a central quality of effective teaming. Edmondson, as well as Heifetz and his colleagues, say that leaders must focus on bringing out the best in others, rather than simply rely on command-and-control.
GFM students have a remarkable opportunity to learn and practice teaming skills as they work on three different case study teams and take on real-world challenges that don’t have easy answers and require creativity. During my workshop early in the New York City seminar, I encourage GFM students to pay attention to how they are teaming and what they are learning from the process. Ideas and tools for effective teaming that I introduce include:
The importance of intentionally getting to know who is on the team;
Developing clear and shared expectations upfront;
Recognizing the challenges of working cross-culturally and how easy it is to act on assumptions that may not be correct;
Various approaches to preventing and resolving common team issues; and
The essential role of team self-assessment to promote learning that can be carried forward to each new team experience.
Hopefully, GFM students will bring the skills and tools they use with their three case study teams to their workplaces—building on diverse perspectives and powering innovation.
GFM students practice outlining expectations in a workshop during the New York Seminar.
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References:
Edmondson, A. C. (2012). Teaming: how organizations learn, innovate, and compete in the knowledge economy (1st ed). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; and Edmondson, A. C. (2012, April). “Teamwork on the Fly” Harvard Business Review.
Heifetz, R. A., Linsky, M., & Grashow, A. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World (1st ed.). Harvard Business Press.
Learn more about Bob Greene’s coaching and consulting work and follow his blog, “With This in Mind” at www.BGCoach.net.
By Bob Greene, MS Leadership and Team Development Coach and Consultant
Global Fashion Management students from Institut Français de la Mode, Hong Kong Poly U, and FIT during a workshop at the New York Seminar.
I’ve had the pleasure for the past several years of facilitating a workshop on building teams for the Graduate Fashion Management (GFM) program during the New York seminar hosted by Fashion Institute of Technology. Students and faculty from schools based in New York, Paris, and Hong Kong meet with industry experts and work on real-life cases to more fully understand the modern global fashion industry.
GFM students also have the opportunity to participate in cross-cultural teams, a vital part of the program. It’s commonplace to talk about the global nature of modern industry, but it’s rare that students can learn about it by interacting in meaningful ways with counterparts from (at least) three continents.
Much of what GFM students will do in their careers requires being able to cope with complexity and ambiguity, identify creative solutions, and constantly innovate. This is the kind of work that teams of people with different backgrounds, experiences, and skills should be well-suited to take on. Scott Page writes in The Difference that “[s]cholars from a variety of disciplines have studied how people and groups make breakthroughs. The common answer: diverse perspectives.” (p.24) Yet as important as diverse teams may be, in my experience, a great many people have little practice working in effective, well-run, teams. In fact, many have had poor team experiences and dread each time they are assigned to a team.
I believe part of the problem is how we typically think about teams. It’s not enough to put a group of people together, call them a team, and expect that they will be effective. In this common scenario, team members fall back on the way they have always done things, whether that has worked well or not. And individuals typically make assumptions about other team members, a tendency that can be heightened in diverse, cross-cultural teams. There is research that indicates that diverse teams can be more effective than teams in which everyone is from the same background, yet diverse teams can also run into significant difficulties that hold them back.
GFM students have a chance to experiment with doing teams differently! As part of the year-and-a-half GFM learning laboratory, students participate in three different case study teams, each one including colleagues from across the globe. Early in the first session in New York, I have the opportunity to explore with them qualities of effective teams and tools they can put to use immediately in their case study teams. In addition, we consider potential cultural assumptions related to working in teams. Each GFM case study team then becomes an opportunity to experiment with doing teams well—moving past previous team experiences to gain the advantages of working in global teams.
Page, S. E. (2007). The difference: how the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Learn more about Bob Greene’s coaching and consulting work and follow his blog, “With This in Mind” at www.BGCoach.net.
Global Fashion Management Students at a lecture on campus at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University during a 10-day intensive seminar.
Within all aspects of Global Fashion Management education—from lecture event to panel discussion to informal conversation—the focus often turns to the demand and purchasing power of the Chinese consumer. According to the Sourcing Journal, China-based consumers’ online spending for American brands in 2015, is seven times higher than in 2014. But while Chinese consumers are aware of American brands, they’re often not available in China. Jingming Li, U.S. President of Alipay, China’s third-party payment platform, writes that growth will be exponential as logistics and localized payment options improve for cross-border purchasing.
Our intensive seminar in Hong Kong provides GFM students the perfect venue to hear the very latest on e-commerce, digital commerce, and social networks from those who know it best—local experts, colleagues, and consumers—and to gain insight on how the future might unfold.
Anson Bailey, Principal, Business Development for KPMG in Hong Kong during a lecture to GFM students at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Anson Bailey, Principal, Business Development for KPMG in Hong Kong, has spent a good portion of his career in China, and has the consumer-technology expertise to deliver a fresh perspective on the contemporary Chinese consumer. Anson says, “Asia will be the story going forward,” and he backs up this claim with a few trends:
Peer to peer, mobile and cognitive technologies will continue to strengthen, especially as new digital consumers in third and fourth tier cities in Mainland China turn to e-commerce.
Among consumers in first and second tier cities, 2008 marked a turning point when buying incentive shifted from status seeking to self-reward and purchasing from a more individualist incentive. Heightened by an educated knowledge of country-of-origin when buying luxury, Chinese consumers have less concern for price, and focus more on accessibility.
Among Chinese consumers surveyed by KPMG, 45% buy online. Among the 54% that make up the middle to upper class, this group has the greatest influence on consumer purchases.
Anson went on to describe the evolving innovation of Chinese tech companies in creating disruptive technologies, consumer convergence, more adaptable mobile devices (such as OnePlus), and aggressive accelerator programs such as AIA. Regardless of how much we may read about the connected Chinese consumer, there’s nothing quite like being on site, and among the experts, to get a first-hand perspective.
OnePlus, a Chinese smartphone company based in Shenzhen with a rapidly growing customer base.Healthcare startup accelerator AIA Demo Day 2015
By Elka Gruenberg (Class of 2016), Northeast Account Executive, Simone Perele
If you were walking down East 55th Street one afternoon in early October, you may have happened across dozens of giddy adults pouring out onto the street; visibly elated, exhausted, chattering non-stop in half a dozen languages, and making a beeline for celebratory drinks. What you would have seen would have been students from FIT’s GFM Program – with their colleagues from IFM and HKPU – emerging from the New York Seminar after delivering case study presentations.
To be fair… we were warned…. multiple times…by all of our professors, advisors, and older students…“Be prepared not to sleep” and “You’re going to work harder than you’ve ever worked before.”
Yet we eagerly dove into the seminar, enthusiastically meeting our new colleagues and forming our case study teams. What followed was ten days of unremitting learning. Nights were spent continuously working and re-working angles of the case study.
Our days, however, were spent being lectured by some of the retail industry’s most influential and accomplished players.
I won’t lie; it felt a bit like a commercial…
Metro Card. $2.50.
Morning double latte. $4.50…
Asking advice from Anna Bakst, who launched Michael Kors Footwear and Accessories and built it into a multi-billion dollar business…Priceless.
Anna Bakst, President, Accessories and Footwear at Michael Kors
While I’m sure she could have easily picked twice as many speakers, Pamela Ellsworth, Chair of GFM, assembled a group of experts who covered the entire span of the retail horizon.
Kevin Ryan – founder of Gilt Groupe – walked us through how he launched the luxury flash sale site. He challenged us to ask, “Why will people use this product,” at every point in product development. He also reminded us that while ideas are great, “The idea is only moderately important. Execution is everything.”
We learned how securing private equity is like dating; how manufacturers are positioned to become direct conduits to retail; and in this day and age every company is a tech company.
All of the speakers pushed us to expand our understanding of the retail experience.
Today’s consumer is more global, more tech savvy, more environmentally conscious and more demanding than ever before. To keep up, we need to be constantly aware of what is happening around the world. Luckily, all I have to do to keep up is Skype with any of my case study teammates in Paris, Casablanca, Geneva, or Hong Kong.
