Op-Ed: Designing Our Futures — Fashioning Small Markets
Photo credit: Ted Belton, courtesy the author.
Imagine graduating from college while a global pandemic rages on, and industries, economies, and global politics crumble before you. The pressure to figure out your life while being bombarded by the never-ending questions of “what will you do next?” from family members makes an already challenging time of life even more brutal. This is the reality for the graduating class of 2020.
Graduating from fashion design programs during the COVID-19 crisis has been an interesting experience. In ordinary circumstances, design graduates leave school with big ideas, high hopes, and lofty aspirations. In addition to the hundreds of hours we spend on studio work, we spend additional time interning to build our reputations, gain connections, and see firsthand how the business of fashion operates. We rely on these experiences to help us acquire jobs and opportunities after graduating. However, due to the effects of COVID-19, finding a space in the industry is harder than it has ever been.
Every sector of the fashion industry has been hit hard by this pandemic. Global manufacturing has come to a standstill, retail locations closed doors for months, fashion houses, brands, and labels shut down, and thousands of people have been furloughed and left jobless. Though we see some slow recovery, the overall feeling remains bleak. While the global fashion industry at large and the global fashion capitals have been affected, small fashion markets are feeling the impacts even harder.
“In theory, internships are a powerful tool enabling students to gain knowledge, insight, and build their resumes. In practice, however, internships mainly benefit those who come from certain levels of affluence or other means of financial support and perpetuate the existing economic divide.”
This year, I completed my undergraduate studies in fashion design at The School of Fashion at Ryerson University, located in Toronto, Ontario. There are currently only a handful of schools in Canada that offer fashion design programs, of which Ryerson is one. The journey through the fashion design program, and now, becoming a fashion designer within the admittedly small fashion market of Toronto has come with its fair share of benefits and pitfalls.
As previously mentioned, internships are a necessary component of contemporary fashion education. Almost every fashion program requires students to obtain internship hours in order to graduate. Yet institutions fail to recognize that the current (mostly unpaid) internship system is elitist and favors those already in privileged positions. In theory, internships are a powerful tool enabling students to gain knowledge, insight, and build their resumes. In practice, however, internships mainly benefit those who come from certain levels of affluence or other means of financial support and perpetuate the existing economic divide. This is a structural problem in all fashion markets, regardless of size, and establishes an awful precedent. Inequitable access is exacerbated for students who reside and study in emerging markets, or in regions that are geographically far from fashion capitals.
When discussing interning with a friend who attended school in Chicago, the differences between our experiences became abundantly clear. My friend studied at a leading fashion design program, and to me it seemed as if the world was their oyster. They told me about the continuous stream of internship postings that students were forwarded by their institution. They were presented with opportunities from both established and new American fashion houses and labels such as Oscar de la Renta, Prabal Gurung, Helmut Lang, Brandon Maxwell, etc. When I took part in an international exchange program in Europe, I noticed that students would receive internship postings from the likes of Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Iris Van Herpen. The types of internships offered were also varied and diverse. Students could intern in fashion communications roles such as styling, buying, PR, and marketing, or in design roles including tech development, production, design training, fabrics, etc. The opportunities for students in large markets facilitate a well-rounded internship experience, which is not the same for those in small markets.
Internships are far more scarce and limited in smaller cities, and offerings are limited as to within which segment of the industry you can intern. Many of the design internships offered involve the production, tech development, and quality control sectors of a company. The brands seeking interns are often very small, with tiny design teams who don’t require much help in terms of creative design. When I first started interning, I was so excited by any opportunity that came my way. I was happy to get my foot in the door, able to see the inner workings of a company for the first time. But bigger opportunities are few and far between, and securing an internship located in an established, or international, market is immensely difficult.
The quest to get a competitive internship teaches invaluable lessons in grit and tenacity, and makes you even more appreciative of the opportunities you receive. But these same internships also highlight the inequalities of the system as a whole. Yes, you have to really want it and fight hard for the position, but you also need to be able to afford the opportunity. I experienced this firsthand when, after my third year of studies, I had the great pleasure of interning with The Row in their New York City studio. My time with the company spanned several months, and I was able to assist on two pre-collections and one runway collection.
This opportunity would have not happened if I did not have the financial support of my family as well as grant money provided to me through The Suzanne Rogers Fashion Institute, a fellowship program offered to Ryerson fashion design students in their third and fourth years of study as well as recent graduates. Students must undergo a rigorous, tiered application process to be accepted. At the time of my internship I had been a Fellow for two years, and after discussing the internship opportunity with the SRFI directors, they graciously offered to pay my rent costs for the duration of my stay in New York. This was monumental. I would have not been able to attend my internship without this support. In addition to this support, my parents paid for my living expenses, such as groceries, phone bills, and metro cards. My parents put everything they could into helping me reach this dream, but their ability to do so makes me an exception when it comes to the highly competitive fashion internship system.
“The job of a designer is to question, to solve problems, and to present new ideas and solutions. No one is better at this than designers who inherently need to work this way.”
For many students, especially those in small markets, these opportunities are beyond the realm of possibility. They are simply too expensive or too difficult to apply for. The biggest factor separating those who can from those who can’t is financial means. My hope for the future is that major companies and/or houses create exclusive partnerships with schools in smaller markets to give these students access to opportunities.
Prospects after graduating aren’t necessarily much better. Opportunities for jobs in creative design are extremely scarce, and graduates in emerging markets are left with very few options. They may volunteer their free time to a company to continue gaining experience while working a secondary job to earn money, pivot into a different career path, start their own fashion venture, or try to get a job in a larger fashion market. You need to decide if you are going to maintain a stubborn selectiveness and wait for the dream job, or pivot to something else in order to gain experience, knowing it will affect future job prospects. While the option of starting your own independent business exists, this is a very intensive process that requires tremendous emotional, mental, physical, and monetary investments.
Similarly, people in small markets may not have the production or manufacturing facilities and/or capabilities to run a business. As fashion design is a more rarefied and niche field in these smaller markets, infrastructure to support the field is often lacking. In Toronto, there are currently around 15 independent fabric stores and one notions supplier in operation. Fabric stores are also in constant flux between being in full operation and announcing a sudden closure as rent prices go up. Most of the products available in stores are mill-ends, deadstock, or bolts that have circulated the global market until finding a home in the small market fabric shops. This reality makes shopping for fabric a difficult process, as prices often do not reflect the quality of the goods; the country of origin and fabric mill cannot be traced or verified, and/or textile composition is unknown. It is a constant gamble to buy fabric, as you can never be completely sure what you are buying. Wholesale distributors are also very limited. In order to secure quality and verified fabrics, outsourcing is often the best method; however, this comes with a higher price tag as currency conversion, import taxes, and duties are added on top of the wholesale price.
Another struggle within small markets is the lack of manufacturing and production facilities. While there may be some providers, their services often only include basic sewing such as single or double needle machine lockstitch, chain stitching, merrowing, buttonholes, and coverstitching, with even fewer offering knit capabilities. Niche or unique treatments such as bonding, laminating, embroidery, and dyeing may not be done as those facilities may not exist. It may also be harder to create leather goods or fur as manufacturers are not present. While garments that require specialized machinery can be outsourced, this is costly and slows down timelines when accounting for shipping and receiving. Most small cities have no garment district like Manhattan’s, where fashion students can find fabric, notions, and production facilities easily.
“The systems that used to dictate the macro fashion industry are collapsing [...] The skills of designers in small markets will become invaluable in this post-coronavirus fashion industry.”
While the lack of resources makes the experience of working and producing in a small market exponentially harder, it also teaches valuable life skills. In addition to learning grit and tenacity early on in your career as a student designer, you also learn the importance of thinking, problem solving, and community-building. Small market designers are trained, whether they realize it or not, to really think outside the box. In my opinion, this creates better designers. The job of a designer is to question, to solve problems, and to present new ideas and solutions. No one is better at this than designers who inherently need to work this way. The idea of creating solutions to problems is woven into the foundations of small market design.
Photo credit: Ted Belton, courtesy the author.
The power of being a designer in a small market is that you must create opportunity for yourself. There is beauty and strength in building a community with those around you; the bonds I have with my peers in the fashion industry are very strong and genuine. As the community is small, it is lovely and vital to have each other. While we are all in some way competing with one another, we also all have our own space and room to shine. The market is not over-saturated with voices trying to scream the loudest to get noticed. Designers in a small market also have the unique opportunity to shape the fashion history of that place from scratch. These cities often do not have centuries-old histories of fashion, which may dictate the style that designers adhere to. Everyone can tell the differences between Parisian, London, Milanese, and New York fashion. These major market hubs have such rich histories, and while there are new and young designers continually presenting new ideas, they often allude to the lineages of which they are a part. New and small markets do not have the weight of that history, and instead can be the drivers of the future of fashion. They can ignore the old ways, and create new methods for doing things and new value systems for the fashion industry at large.
The systems that used to dictate the macro fashion industry are collapsing. COVID-19 has created a crater in the industry. Globally, emerging and established designers alike are proposing new business models and reshaping what the fashion industry is and how it operates. The skills of designers in small markets will become invaluable in this post-coronavirus fashion industry. Our resourcefulness, community-mindedness, and determination will have trained us in creating new and innovative ways of making, showcasing, and selling our clothes and offerings. There is a new horizon ahead. This is the best time to fashion not only our own future, but the future of the global fashion industry.
