Fashion students design a clothing line from scratch

 Students in Fashion Design and Merchandising created their own business from scratch. 

Students designed logos, products, tags, packaging and more

Prior to even starting the project late last fall, first-year Fashion Design & Merchandising student Caroline Duffield had a product line of her own. She had a name, Caroline Mae, a philosophy, an aesthetic and even a website.

Yet, even for the Byram Hills High School senior, the class’ second quarter project at the Center for Career Services taught skills and techniques that enhanced her fledgling brand. She learned Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. And she learned how to refine a design and look elsewhere for inspiration.Students designed names, logos, packaging, marketing plans, and more.“I learned a lot about building your customer profile,” Duffield said. “We were asked to really think about who are customers might be.”

Fashion Design & Merchandising students, taught by instructor Carmen Galiano, were tasked with designing a brand from start to finish. The project asked them to pick a name, design a label and packaging, craft a business plan, identify a mission statement and customer profile, and much more.

Creating unique patterns and designing clothing (six different pieces in all) were only part of the in-depth project.

“I told them: ‘Every single thing you do must be designed,’” Galiano said.

That includes not just an item of clothing but also a tag and even the font choices used in marketing content. Galiano said the use of Photoshop and especially Illustrator, which is an industry standard, allowed students to exercise their creativity and express themselves. The end result included beach-themed lines, clothing for pets, colorful urban designs and everything in between.

“This project gives them an opportunity to be an entrepreneur,” Galiano said. “It’s a business lesson, an art lesson, a technology lesson — all wrapped up into fashion.”

Galiano said that while the various steps in the project may be handled by different departments in a fashion brand, it also represents the challenges her students may face in the real world, especially earlier in their careers.

And while each student was tasked with designing clothing that fit well together in a collection, they also had to consider who their customers would be and why they would care about purchasing these particular products.

Junior Romy Jooss, who has worked as a sales associate previously, said each skill is valuable.

“You really have to know fabrics, style, purpose and more when selling clothing,” said Jooss, a junior at Byram Hills. “This class helps make you more confident that you will know everything you need to know to understand your products.”