FASHION 101

IN THE background, a chorus of power-driven sewing machines hums accompaniment as one by one, the board of directors files in to take their seats. It’s time to forecast the styles and fabrics for the spring sportswear line.

“Paris is doing boxy shoulders and angular dropped waists,” someone volunteers as the meeting convenes.

Audible groans. “We did that last year!”

“Can’t we go romantic -like giant ruffles and tight-cinched waists? Our girls want something they can wear to the prom!”

“Hey – do you really think those fantasy numbers will run through a production line?”

“Just give us something we can sell. We’ve got six weeks to get this collection into the boutique.”

Swatches of hot-pink taffeta, nubby striped cotton and black and white jersey pass from hand to hand as the merits of each and their appropriate interpretations are hashed out. Then, abruptly, the bell rings. Class at the fashion cluster, Skyline High School, is dismissed.

These teen-age aspirants to the world of fashion -some of whom study merchandising; some, apparel construction; some, design – enjoy one of the most progressive preparatory fashion curriculums in town. The two-year course at Skyline, which teaches students in an industrylike setting, is indicative of a major shift in fashion education. Little more than a decade ago, fashion courses were wedged between the four basic food groups and Child Development 101. At the college level, fashion instruction invariably fell under the aegis of home economics – and often was located within the school of agriculture. As Dr. Jack Gill, fashion department head at Texas Woman’s University, says: “We used to train students for work in the home. Now we train them for careers.”

Has a fashion career been in your mind since you were knee-high to a maxi skirt? Do you secretly harbor a desire to join the ranks of designers who put the likes of Brooke’s bottom on the map? The world of fashion has the illusion, at least, of glamour and big bucks – of frenzied workdays and swirls of color and tony models twirling down a runway. In reality, the apparel field is “dumb, dull, boring-and ultimately, exciting,” according to Kim Dawson, fashion director of the Dallas Apparel Mart.

But what it may lack in glamour, fashion makes up for – locally, at least – in job availability. Fashion is big business in Dallas. The apparel industry here is second only to New York’s Seventh Avenue -the Dallas Market Center alone supports more than 100,000 workers. But until recently, Dallas had no school even remotely comparable to New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. “I will be forever grateful to Holly Harp,” Dawson says. “After she made it as a name designer, she went on record saying that she graduated from a Dallas-area fashion program and didn’t learn a thing. Everyone involved took that as a direct challenge to improve.”

The road to improvement has been paved in equal measure by area educators and industry leaders. Local manufacturers, designers and retailers advise students on updating curriculums, sponsor competitions, provide guest lecturers, donate materials and hire students for cooperative internships. Educators, in turn, strive to graduate students who are well-qualified to enter the fashion field. It’s a collaboration that benefits all.

Anyone considering a career in fashion needs training in the multiple facets of today’s garment trade. Even entry-level positions require more technical expertise than a working knowledge of the sewing machine. During the past decade, every program in the Dallas area has been overhauled to reflect the industry’s needs more accurately. Today, students study subjects as diverse as business law, computerized pattern grading, sales motivation, fashion illustration and accounting. By 1990, as electronics continue to be integrated into retailing and manufacturing, there will be even more changes.

With the decision to go to school -or back to school -to study fashion comes several choices that must be made. Do you wish to pursue a bachelor’s degree with a major in fashion or simply the most expedient vocational course? Are you looking for a college program with transferable credits or a flexible schedule that allows you to work part time? Do you hope to emerge as tomorrow’s Liz Claiborne or the fur buyer at Neiman’s?

Basically, fashion curriculums tend to separate into two (or occasionally three) areas: fashion design, pattern making and fashion merchandising; or, translated into industry terms: wholesale vs. retail. Students of clothing and pattern design learn everything from art-oriented theories of color and design to mass-production sewing techniques. Merchandising majors study fashion-show production, the history of couture, merchandise pricing and inventory control. There is a degree of overlap -a designer needs to know how and why particular styles sell; a retailer needs training in the production of garments-but somewhere along the way, the wholesale and retail paths must diverge.

Oddly, perhaps, the two most notable four-year degree programs in the area are not in Dallas at all, but 30 miles north in Denton. Texas Woman’s University (TWU) once had the area’s premier program, but it suffered a decline and is now aggressively trying to regain its eminence. TWU is the only university in the Dallas area to offer doctoral degrees in fashion and the only local school to house all the various fashion disciplines under one departmental roof.

North Texas State University (NTSU) also has a fine fashion program that has moved steadily forward to embrace the changing times. At NTSU, a student can choose one of three programs in one of three schools: fashion design in the art school, fashion marketing in the business school or fashion merchandising in the home economics school.

To an untrained observer, it appears that the strength of NTSU’s program lies in its art-based design curriculum, which emphasizes basic artistic skills and encourages flights of fantasy in design. “I firmly believe that design belongs in the art department,” says Betty Mattil, NTSU’s fashion program coordinator. “The students get a strong background in basic drawing and design before they ever begin to concentrate on fashion. We think of school as a time for unbounded creativity. They [the students] will learn only too soon the constraints of the real world.”

By contrast, the design program at TWU simulates conditions in industry down to a time sheet the students must sign to accustom themselves to punctuality. Several years ago, former garment manufacturer Les Wilk joined the TWU faculty as designer-in-residence. He has made it his business to see that his students understand what the apparel trade is all about.

TWU attracts a large number of older students-the average age is 28-so a midlife back-to-schooler would feel comfortable here. The atmosphere is more workaday than the strikingly contemporary surrounds at NTSU; the contrast is especially apparent in a comparison of the two university-housed museums. TWU’s exhibit (housed in a basement) features a permanent display of inaugural gowns worn by a succession of Texas governors’ wives. NTSU’s museum recently showcased a stunning retrospective of 20th-century works by Balenciaga, Spain’s greatest creator of haute couture.

Both schools offer solid design programs heavily laced with industry liaisons. An important requirement at both TWU and NTSU is a one- or two-semester work internship in some phase of the fashion industry. Naturally, a student graduating with some work experience has an advantage when job interviewing. Both colleges also sponsor competitions and fashion shows to motivate students and provide a forum for their talents.

For all the glamour in design, it is the other garment trades that offer the security of abundant jobs. Fashion experts estimate that one in 10,000 makes it to the top of the designer heap. That’s one among thousands of patternmakers, graders, cutters, stitchers, sewers, suppliers and sales representatives. One advantage of industry-oriented fashion courses is that they teach all of these related skills. For people with mediocre talent, such preparation could spell the difference between lucrative employment and a career that flops.

If recent strides on the wholesale end of instruction are impressive, the gains in the retail end are even more so. Educators say that fashion merchandising is the fastest-growing college major in the country. Marketing curriculums didn’t even exist in many schools five years ago. The new programs mainly grew out of industry surveys that targeted business knowledge and skills as lacking among their recently graduated new hires.



In keeping with its theory of departmentalization, marketing at NTSU is taught as a specialization built upon a strong business base. But students can major in marketing and minor in design – or vice versa. At TWU, fashion merchandising is a degree in itself-one of the most popular degrees on campus. Instructors say that those who study merchandising and marketing train primarily to be store buyers, department managers or, ultimately, shop owners.



IN DALLAS proper, the choice of a school is narrowed to community colleges or vocational schools that offer one- to two-year programs and associate degrees. There are several, but the two most acclaimed are El Centro College (and its affiliates) and the Fashion and Art Institute of Dallas (FAID).

The apparel and pattern-design program at El Centro began in 1966 when the aschool was formed. According to Marcy Thorson, one of two full-time design instructors, El Centro students come from a variety of backgrounds. Some have degrees that won’t earn them a living; others have degrees and careers they don’t like. And some are just starting out. When a student enrolls at El Centro, he comes to learn an employable skill. While there are required support courses that offer overviews of business and the liberal arts, this is not the place to brush up on 19th-century poetry or genetic research.

The apparel and pattern-design program runs two school years, with classes and lab work scheduled primarily during the day. An optional cooperative work experience is offered during the second year. One advantage of El Centro is its low tuition: A legal resident of Dallas County enrolled in a 15-credit-hour course pays a mere $105.

The design program is taught only at El Centro, but the fashion-merchandising programs are offered at two affiliates in the Dallas County Community College system: Brookhaven College in far North Dallas and Cedar Valley in Lancaster.

In June 1978, another vocational program in fashion came to Dallas through the Fashion and Art Institute. The school opened with 35 students and now has 500 students enrolled, 200 of whom live in a campus-style dorm. FAID’s president, Earl Wheeler, who founded similar schools in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Atlanta, bought an existing school that had been in the Apparel Mart for 16 years and added classes in commercial art, interior design and, incongruously, court reporting. A new one-year course in public relations is in the offing.

The only fashion field that is taught at FAID is merchandising. Wheeler doesn’t believe in teaching design because so few designers actually make it in the field. “Design is a big moneymaker for a school,” he says, “but most of the graduates wind up in alterations. It’s a crime to waste two years in school to be in alterations.”

Wheeler’s claim to fame is the accreditation of his school, which comes under the auspices of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools -“the same group that [accredits] the University of Texas and SMU,” Wheeler says. What this means is that FAID course credits can be transferred to schools with similar courses.

The program at FAID is conducted in 18 consecutive months, five days a week, from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. “Many of our students work, and their employers usually expect them to be at their jobs by noon,” Wheeler says.

The strength of the FAID program lies in the variety of fashion merchandising careers to which a student is exposed and the degree of assistance in placement offered by the school. In addition to the conventional vocations, FAID grads are theoretically trained to be display directors, fashion editors, illustrators or personal shoppers. Students are required to work a minimum of 540 hours before they can graduate, and placement assistance is offered for the work/study course upon graduation.

In addition to FAID and El Centro, there is Miss Wade’s School of Fashion Merchandising in Dallas and Bauder College in Arlington. Miss Wade’s is in its 14th year of operation in the hotbed of fashion activity -the Apparel Mart. The school offers a two-year program (60 credit hours) that culminates in an associate of applied arts degree and is conducted in 12 consecutive months. Students must study all 20 subjects offered in the curriculum, which spans fashion design, merchandising and interior design. There is no specialization in any one area. Says President Frank Toriello, “No matter whether you’re in wholesale or retail, you have to know both ends of the business. Our graduates can come out of here and open their own shop.”

In addition to the basic courses, Miss Wade’s requires an introduction to computers, human psychology, economics and business law. Students attend classes from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., five days a week and work as hostesses or in sales during all major apparel markets. The cost for the entire course is $4,300.

Bauder College also conducts a two-year program offering an associate degree, but it is structured much like a university. The college has three major emphases – fashion design, interior design and fashion merchandising-from which to choose and a nine-month calendar (September to May) with summers free. Some 550 to 600 students enroll at Bauder each year, and both dorm and apartment housing is available. Classes are held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays; a work internship is required during the second year. Tuition runs $3,710 per year.



A DALLAS Independent School District (DISD) student with the foresight to plan his or her vocation before leaving high school can be well served by the fashion cluster at Skyline High School. The school offers 24 career development programs open to any student in the DISD. The courses combine a half day of academics (at Skyline or the student’s home school) with a half day in a specialized field. Ironically, of all the fashion facilities in the Dallas area, Skyline has the most advanced and well-equipped labs. Students are trained on the most modern industrial equipment and, like students in area colleges, enjoy a close working relationship with professionals in the apparel business. “At Skyline, we stress pattern making and grading,” says teacher Meta Richard, “because that’s where the manufacturers tell us the jobs are. The hardest part of the industry to break into is design.”

Students who graduate from Skyline with a completion certificate from the two- to three-year fashion cluster course can either enter the industry at the bottom or continue their studies in college.

Whether or not a university degree is beneficial to a fashion career is debatable. Predictably, four-year educators claim that a bachelor’s degree gives a job candidate an edge over an aspirant with a lesser degree. In turn, community college instructors bemoan a university system that turns out graduates ill-equipped to earn a living. El Centro alumna Kay Ridings, who is now the designer for Brenner Inc., believes there’s no substitute for a college degree, but she cautions students to be extremely careful when choosing a college. Ridings says she once hired a patternmaker who had been taught at the University of Texas at Austin. “Through no fault of her own but lack of training, it took her all day to make one pattern – and it wasn’t usable.”

The advantage of a school that offers a work/study program is that the internship gives you a realistic idea of what working on the sales floor or in a designing room is like. But despite the fact that school programs attempt to convey the realities of working in the fashon industry, that first job is invariably a shock. “Anyone who plans on being a designer right off the bat is in for trouble,” Kim Dawson says. “Plan on being a gofer, an assistant designer or a pattern maker first.”

Ridings agrees: “New people may have the creativity, but they can’t have the productivity. It’s just impossible for them to comprehend the pace of the work involved. We often put 100 garments on the road within six or seven weeks.”

A college graduate in design, hopefully, will at least begin in the design room. A graduate in merchandising will probably enter an executive training course. FAID’s Earl Wheeler advises students to evaluate training programs thoroughly and shop around for the best salaries. He says that Neiman-Marcus is the most prestigious employer in town but is notorious for offering the lowest pay. On the other hand, he says, K-Mart is weak in status but strong in compensation and training.

Depending on who you ask, starting salaries vary widely for new hires. El Cen-tro’s Marcy Thorson says that starting pay in the pattern room can be as low as $125 to $150 a week. But, she says, “There’s no upper limit to what a person with ability and skill can achieve in fashion.”

“We encourage our graduates not to accept a salary less than $12,000 a year,” says Wheeler. “They’re trained well, and they deserve decent pay.” Ridings puts it this way: “The salaries are comparable to-or perhaps less than -a starting secretary’s at first. But the life is so much more challenging. To make it in fashion you have to love this crazy business.”