No matter the Centennial College program, you’ll be given practical experience to give you the real skills you’ll need in the career you want. In our Fashion Business and Management program, instead of just learning how to create fashion products, you’re trained in the practical part of getting that product off the page and into the world, as you learn product development, sourcing, manufacturing, technology, marketing, retail, business and management through a series of interactive projects. One such project involved students designing and procuring special socks for the Business School. The class was placed in groups, and tasked with designing socks that they then sourced and manufactured by researching and securing a vendor of their choice, negotiated costs, quantities, and timelines, as you would in the fashion business world. At the end of the project, each student had gotten the taste of a career in Fashion Business. Here’s what they had to say about their time with the project, and the program in general:
On why they joined the program:
“I’ve been involved in a lot of retail, working in different department stores. I recently got promoted, and in order for me to get further promoted, I needed a degree or diploma, so that’s why I’m here, to move up in retail management.” – Noel Fermin
“I’m here because I like fashion and business, and I wanted to put, like those skills together.” – Elizabeth Edwards
“I’m a fashion designer, I studied that back home in Mexico. Then, when I moved to Canada, I was looking for something related to fashion, and also I love business, so this program fits perfectly with what I want to do in the future.” – Karen Martinez
“I used to be a Journalist where I lived in Brazil, and I’ve always worked with content related to women’s interests, and fashion was one of them. But I’ve never seen myself as a fashion designer, because my passions are journalism, marketing and business, so I chose this program so I could specialize in it. I didn’t want it to just be a passion anymore. I wanted it to be my work.” – Patricia Feitosa
“The reason I came here is because I wanted to do my own business as an entrepreneur in the future.” – Kunnika Sutthisawatkul
On what the biggest challenge in the business socks project was:
“It was hard to make socks that were fashionable, and followed the newest trends.” – Mykhaylo Barykin
“We all four have very different styles, but we had to make one or two designs that would fit. Sometimes four good ideas don’t make one good project, and that was the hardest.” – Weiqung Zhang
“Finding someone who could make the socks for us at a decent price point. We needed to have a minimum quantity of 100 socks, and we had a certain colour palette as well, and we had to make sure these vendors could produce these colours for us.” – Noel Fermin
“We wanted to keep local, because we’d been studying a lot about strengthening your home country, so that was one of our options, and it was hard to keep it within the budget in Canada. We had to do a lot of research and negotiations with the supplier. It was fun, though.” – Patricia Feitosa
“Even just going in front of the judge panel was challenging, but they let us learn how to pitch and gave us the proper technique to give them our point of view.” – Elizabeth Edwards
On what the most important thing they learned was…
“We were given a tricky assignment. If it was a t-shirt or a hoodie, it would be a lot easier. But sometimes in your career, you have to do something you don’t have experience in.” – Mykhaylo Barykin
“It’s made me understand more about how the business of fashion works, including the marketing, and how we go about it.” – Kunnika Sutthisawatkul
“It was good to get to know a bit about Canada’s market, because we stayed local, we got to know some local suppliers. Also, we got to strengthen our negotiation power.” – Patricia Feitosa
“We had to keep in touch with China, and it would take them time to answer back, while we had deadlines we had to present each week. It was good for us because we learned, step by step, how things are in real life.” – Pamella Carvalhosa
On how what they learned will help them in their career…
“There are two options I wanted to do. One of them was to move into HR and another is to become a buyer, and this program really teaches you to do both, and it gives me opportunities to learn about both fields that I want to go into, and I feel like I can make a better choice at the end.” – Noel Fermin
“This project reflected what a lot of us are going to do, which is dealing with suppliers and having the power of negotiation, and also knowing how to communicate and strengthen and research.” – Karen Martinez
“I think many students don’t know what they’re going to face in the market until they have a hands-on experience, and that’s why this project is perfect, because we had the opportunity to go to the real world for a moment, and to have a picture of what’s waiting for us.” – Patricia Feitosa
By Anthony Geremia