Okay, so i am a fashion marketing and management major. I am just getting into my major classes but have to take all the required art & design classes to be a student here and also a fashion major. Right now, I am taking a fashion design class and will continue to take classes that explain how clothing is made even though i am technically studying the business aspect of it. If I intend on working in fashion, even if i am not a designer (and who knows, maybe one day I will be one.), I need to know everything about the industry in order to succeed. I think that my major is great because I am learning business, marketing AND design. And truthfully, there are more jobs for those who have a more broad approach to the industry and not JUST design. FASM is basically EVERYTHING, if not just the hard stuff.
I'm not picking on design students because UM...what is the point? They are doing their thing and I'm doing mine. They SHOULD be taking the marketing classes if they know what's good for them. I could be a fashion design student if I wanted to, but I chose what I chose because that is what I want to do and feel it's more appropriate for when I want to get a job. With all of that said, I am completely tired of hearing fashion design students act as if the FASM program is one big joke. Are you guys idiots? I can't tell you how many times i've heard "oh they're just a fashion marketing major, they can't deal with the real stuff". Are you a person? Do you hear yourself? Not only are you picking on people who are IN the fashion program, but you're picking on people who will hold the future of your design career in their hands. Who sells your line once you make it? Who puts it in magazines? Who puts it in their stores? Who produces the fashion shows for you to show in? Who does almost EVERYTHING for you to succeed as a designer?
Now, i'm sure there are students who signed up for the design program, couldn't deal with it or changed their minds and changed to fashion marketing. Or girls who think that they can just be a buyer for Saks immediately without any type of challenge as long as they major in fashion marketing. And I am sure there are fashion marketing students who changed to design because they couldn't deal with the all the charts, data, business plans, thinking about merchandising/packaging, how to display fashion in a store, importing/exporting, buying, numbers, thinking, studying consumer behavior, forecasting, etc. (you know, the 'not real' stuff) on top of taking a fashion tech/design class.
So I'd really love for those people who have asked me "Um, is FASM even in the fashion program?" and "Marketing girls just want to shop" to sit down, realize what they are saying and be quiet. Also, you should probably meet with your advisor and take a fashion business course if you ever want to succeed and you should probably also meet with a social therapist so you can learn the proper way to speak to your peers and soon to be co-workers. Fashion is not rocket science so let's just stop and support each other cause let's face it, we're all going to get the eye-roll from those Yale and Harvard business graduates who say "Oh..you're in fashion?" And we're all going to have to say yes.
