Move over Lord Sugar! There’s a new boardroom in Birmingham, as Fashion students recently got to experience.
As part of our ongoing aim to prepare students for the working world, Fashion tutors regularly provide students with the opportunity to get industry-level experiences as part of their course. This helps them to stand out from the crowd when applying for university, careers, and work placements.
Over three weeks our fashion students were grouped together, assigned a project manager amongst themselves and then tasked with creating their own brands & products to pitch to industry experts as part of Fashion’s ‘Meet The Board’ project.
With key focuses on sustainability, gender, and finances, students gained business experience by undertaking market research and exploration to better understand the wider fashion industry that they hope to enter once they’ve finished their qualifications. From understanding how to design a logo, target an audience, create a presence on social media to brand their product identities, and even explore how to price their garments – teams collaborated to ensure they were each a force to be reckoned with!
After a lot of hard work a panel of experts featuring special guests were invited to our Digbeth boardroom: Kiran Kaur Reel– Menswear department Manager at Selfridges & Aminah Mehrban– Assistant buyer for homeware Aldi. These guest board members came to watch students pitch their plans and showcase what they had been working on – as well as share familiar stories and experiences as past students from our very own HND Fashion courses.
It was a perfect opportunity for current students to get a feel for what pitching to corporate clients is like, and how they can enhance their skills for the future from those who had already walked in their shoes.
Plans are already in motion ready for the next batch of pitches – and we can’t wait to see what creative ideas are coming up next!
A massive well done to all the students who presented and were involved, we loved getting to hear about how you took your ideas from concept to creation – as well as how passionate you are about ongoing issues that the fashion industry is currently facing. We have no doubt you’ll go on to do more wonderful things in the future!
Have a passion for Fashion and feeling inspired? Want the opportunity to gain similar experience? Find out more about what courses are currently available from our Fashion team over on our website.