The Northwestern uniform: The end result of too little sleep, freezing temps and weekday late nights. But fashion incompetence?
“It’s interesting, isn’t it? ‘North Face University.’ Some people call it that,” says Steven Fischer, associate director of the Master of Management and Manufacturing Program at Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Fischer, who has taught at Northwestern for the past 12 years, had a realization while attending an on-campus lecture by the president of Vera Wang in November 2004: Northwestern students had a genuine interest in the fashion industry. The next year, he introduced a fashion Business Institutions Program (BIP) undergraduate course and instituted the Kellogg Fashion, Lifestyle & Design fashion speaker series.
The class was designed to transcend commentary on brand names and big-label style, Fischer says, and instead address “deep underpinnings” of the sociology and psychology of fashion. “We all have to get dressed every day — in fact, that’s legally required — but what’s the significance of our choices?” Now, five years later, Fischer teaches another class for Kellogg students on fashion and products that he introduced two years ago, with plans to spearhead more fashion initiatives at NU for students.
Over the past decade or so, Fischer has noticed a shift in the student body’s fashion consciousness. Factors for the change include the advent of affordable chains such as H&M, Forever 21 and Zara, a greater emphasis on individuality rather than labels and creative expression. “Really what’s going on is a dramatic shift from the ‘Sex and the City’ fashion era to more of an independent expression era,” Fischer says.
But increased fashion consciousness isn’t synonymous with a fashion-focused campus.
“We are not a fashion design school. Never will be,” Fischer says. “So in that respect, are we going to be like students at Parsons? No. But nor should we be.” Fischer says he hopes to see Northwestern embrace the idea of fashion in a much larger context, and take it upon itself to create a home for fashion-focused initiatives. “Students are instrumental in making this happen,” Fischer says.
This movement can be seen with the makings of STITCH magazine. Started in 2006 by then-freshman Joyce Lee, who got the idea when she and two other friends attended a campus event featuring Jeremy Piven. “Conversation fell on what his outfit would be,” Lee, now a Medill senior and former Daily staffer who’s studying in Qatar, wrote in an e-mail. “All three of us were somewhat tied to journalism (and) communications, so we instantly thought of a fashion magazine, and how there wasn’t one.” Lee set out to change that, recruiting photographers and writers to work for the fashion mag. And it seems only to be gaining momentum: Today, STITCH has around 30 staffers, a circulation of 3,000 and a daily blog as it gears up for its sixth issue.
Emma Roberts, SESP junior and assistant editor of the blog who has worked for STITCH since her freshman year, says STITCH’s purpose is not to provide a superficial rendering of the campus fashion scene, nor an arbiter of style. “STITCH’s goal is not to be a public shopping list,” Roberts says. “It touches on other things that inspire fashion… art, history. It’s supposed to be something interesting and fun.” Roberts sees the fashion sensibilities of NU’s student body influencing STITCH, but not in a directly correlated way: “The magazine is supposed to get people thinking. And I think it brings together fashion elements, both from the runway and other places, in a really organic way.”
It is this campus climate that has allowed students to become involved with fashion in myriad ways, including campus rep gigs for companies like Marshall’s and American Rag.
Rent the Runway, a new company launched two weeks ago, has set out to bring high-priced frocks to cash-strapped students. The premise? Love, wear, return. “I don’t need to stuff my closet with things that are overpriced and that I’m never going to wear again,” says Weinberg sophomore Rachel Eisenpress, the NU representative for the start-up. Eisenpress is one of about 30 RTR campus reps nationally. As an English major, she sees the role as a way to understand the fashion industry better while bringing au courant pieces to NU’s campus. “It’s the best of both worlds,” Eisenpress says.
Even students who didn’t have plans to go into a fashion-related industry have discovered their NU experiences have prepared them for jobs in that very field. Lauren Berg, an ’08 Weinberg graduate who majored in history, found herself venturing into public relations for Skirt PR, which focuses on fashion, beauty and lifestyle public relations. “I obviously had little fashion or public relations experience, but all the NU work habits definitely have helped me in my career,” Berg says. “But the fashion element… that was more cultural than academic.”
Berg’s fellow Skirt PR coworker and former coed cohort Katelyn Koepke, an ’08 Medill grad, notes the stigma often attached to the industry. “I would have loved the chance to look more into fashion and fashion journalism without it being looked down upon in some sense,” Koepke says.
For some current students, the recent flourish of fashion development doesn’t yet cover all the niches of the industry. “I am completely interested in fashion journalism, but you’re not going to get that here,” says Emily Mitchell, a Medill sophomore. (Mitchell is a former weekly contributor.) “There are classes here on fashion, but they focus on design and more about the business model.” Mitchell says she would rather explore the industry holistically and from a journalistic perspective. And a piqued but unfulfilled interest in fashion isn’t confined to aspiring Anna Wintours, Mitchell points out. “It’s different because I don’t want to be a designer or a buyer, and I think if Northwestern offered classes on different aspects of the industry, a lot of people would respond positively,” she says.
While NU continues to foster the aspirations of style-striving NU students, it is those students who are a key component of the chic equation, according to Fischer. “Fashion of course is a social phenomenon that does not happen in a vacuum,” says Fischer. “It would only change if students expected it to and made it a point to.”
1 comments