August 24, 2010

From July 11-24th, 31 high school students from all over the U.S. studied and explored careers in a summer high school program run by our Fashion and Design & Merchandising programs. The following write-up is from one of the participants, Elly Ayres, from Bradenton, FL.

“I couldn’t wait to come here to Drexel and Philly, because I wanted to see what the fashion industry was like,” Kerry Bresnahan explained to me as she climbed off of the bus outside of Millennium Dorms. “I’m really looking forward to the projects and studio time, and especially meeting people who are interested in the same things as I am.”

The projects Bresnahan referred to cover a wide array of topics in Design and Merchandising. Along with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, students in the Fashion Design program also learned CAD (Computer Aided Design) to construct fashion illustrations on the computer. The Fashion Design students tried their hand at spontaneous draping, a quick course which consisted of constructing clothes out of newspaper for half-scale dress forms. Both the Fashion Design and Design & Merchandising programs were assigned final projects, which they completed throughout the course of their two weeks stay at Drexel.

For Fashion Design, the final project was to design a mini collection, complete with a recurring theme, fashion illustrations and mood board. Design & Merchandising’s assignment was to design and market a perfume brand. They designed the brand logo, bottle, box, shopping bag and store display, all while keeping the target audience in mind. Each group was critiqued by faculty and visiting critics. Catherine Byers, Assistant Teaching Professor for D&M, coordinated the program, and Cynthia Golembuski, Associate Program Director for Fashion Design, managed the FD student experience.