Written By- Emonnie Jacobs & Bella Goglia

Promoting our program
Generally, people tend to think that the only careers in the fashion industry are the typical models, designers, and buyers. However, the Old Dominion University fashion merchandising program serves the purpose of teaching students the many different roles, positions, and responsibilities that they can achieve and participate in within the fashion industry. This program offers students exciting opportunities with retail trips, fashion show creation, and hands-on courses. The Old Dominion University Fashion merchandising program also teaches students to understand the current state of the fashion industry’s eco-footprint and ways in which they can contribute towards reducing it. The plan to promote this program is through hands-on events, in-person advertising for the students on campus like flyers, and social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Recruiting prospective students
The Old Dominion University Fashion department prides itself on our community outreach and our social media to help promote our program to other students. Last year we held a booth at the Campus art’s festival to educate the community on proper sustainability practices. Many fashion designs were featured for the public to view and several of the students were interviewed by the newspaper. We also had the wonderful opportunity to be interviewed on Wavy News 7 last semester, talking about our major and once again the importance of sustainability. Every year, a fashion show is held at the Barry Art museum that is also open to the public. On the fashion major’s Instagram page, students are sent out to talk to students of other majors and promote the fashion program in an interview format for the followers to watch. The fashion club held a booth during activity hour in the library a month ago. These are just some of the ways we are reaching prospective students and would love for you to join us.

Creating awareness of events/news-worthy happenings within the fashion industry.
Our fashion professors work very hard to always provide us with the latest information in the fashion world. Whether that’s new designs, new ways to advertise, stores that are looking at bankruptcy, how the economy is affecting the industry, we learn it all. We are encouraged to research a lot of these happenings through the project , presentation or paper format to share this new information with all of our classmates. Our department also learns a lot of news from the fashion industry by actually experiencing the industry. We are given and encouraged to go on a ton of opportunities, to go behind the scenes and have hands-on -experiences that you cannot get from a lecture. Some examples of this include: Touring the Norfolk ports, going into the warehouse of Dollar Tree, talking to local designers and networking with them, even touring a bridal showroom. We are also encouraged to go on department trips and study abroad programs. We spent two weeks in Paris, France this May studying Haute Couture, fashion forecasting, historical fashion and sustainability. Every spring, we also have the option of attending the Vegas trunk show for a week. Allowing us to see all of the new fabrics and materials before they are purchased and used for garments and fashion shows. Through our community efforts, we can apply what we have learned and educate the general public on very important topics. For example, every October we volunteer at Spooky Thrift, an on campus free thrift store that provides information on sustainability and campus resources. We are very fortunate to be able to participate in these.