Students interested in pursuing a career in the fashion industry can now gain valuable experience through a new course offered
at St. John’s The Marketing of Fashion, taught and spearheaded by marketing professor Andrea Licari, will take place from May 17-21, and again from May 24-26. Students from any major can take the class as an elective.
Licari said the class has been filling up fast, but that it will be offered again during the January 2011 intersession.
“This is a wonderful way for a young person to get an overview of the industry,” she said. “[They’ll get to] see that it’s a lot more than just clothes, it’s how we live our lives. It’s where we live our lives, it’s the literature we read, the food we eat.”
Licari, who taught at the Fashion Institute of Technology [FIT] for more than 20 years, said she had the idea for this class for a few years. She has had experience in the modeling and fashion industries.
“Fashion is controlled by culture,” she said. “The more exposure you have to a global culture, the more you include into your definition of fashion.”
Over the course of the eight days, students will take various field trips, hear from experts in the industry and work on a group marketing project.
Students will visit the costume exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ralph Lauren showroom and flagship store and the FIT Museum. They will also meet with architects, including Kevin Wolfe, who specializes in landmark preservation.
Licari noted that “fashion is an evolutionary thing.” She also said that many trends that might seem new are actually
recycled from earlier eras.
During one of her classes, the students started talking about bell bottom jeans-one student said that the trend was created in the 1970s. But Licari told her class that the trend actually stemmed back from the late 1800s, a fact she said the class was surprised to learn.
“It’s a cycle of fashion,” she said. “You’re not creating it, it’s coming back at a different time.”
She added, “[Students] don’t realize that a lot of what they see is a redress of something that has already been seen.”
She used the example of Ralph Lauren as a designer who has been successful with “lifestyle marketing” because he is involved in many fields in addition to clothing, including home accessories and car designs.
