Enrol in Fashion Business and Management, and you’ll learn about the fashion world as a business, examining the details of product development, supply chain management, retail, marketing and everything else that goes on behind the scenes. It’s a program that provides you with career connections through field placements, but also with opportunities to meet industry professionals through events like “Careers in Fashion,” a networking presentation hosted by the Fashion Business & Management program at Centennial College. Here are the four pros who came to meet with students most recently:
- Anna Care, Director of Digital Experience at Aritzia.
- Colette Liburd, Owner of the Clarendon Trading Company.
- Janet Ellis, Corporate High End Manager at Louis Vuitton.
- Tracy Platt, Associate Vice-President of Product Development Style and Home at Canadian Tire.
Over a question-and-answer session, the four guest speakers revealed plenty of valuable, insider information about their industry, how to get into it and how to succeed. Here’s just a bit of the discussion.
What they really do
There’s a lot of different careers in the fashion business world, and the four speakers represented a cross-section of possibilities.
"I get to spend time both in our corporate office in Canada, and in each and every one of our retail stores across Canada," said Janet Ellis about her position. "It is my role to support each and every one of our top clients’ journeys. I do a lot of traveling, and I do a lot of conversation dinners, gala openings, to meet new, high-potential clients, and to be very, very familiar with our existing top clients."
"We're in vintage and sustainable fashion," Colette Liburd said about the Clarendon Trading Company. As the owner, Colette continued, "we find a lot of creative means to source our products. I also do business operations, so a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, like accounting, taxes, bookkeeping, I'm in charge of that."
"My role is really everything," said Anna Care about directing Digital Experience. "I lead a group of User Experience and User Interface designers. And our group leads everything that touches Aritzia.com from an infrastructure perspective. So all of the navigation when you're shopping for a product, how you will click through from where you land on a page, all the way through to your checkout."
"I'm always studying what's happening, not only in the home decor industry specifically, but also what's happening in general, what consumers are gravitating towards," Tracy Platt said about being AVP of Product Development. "What are the products that they're going to want?"
Why they joined the industry
Just as there are many careers in fashion business, there’s different reasons to get into it, as each of the speakers revealed when discussing what makes them passionate in their careers. For Colette, it was about making fashion greener.
"We focus on vintage and sustainable fashion, and that's something that I'm really passionate about, because it is very much a counterculture to mainstream fashion," she said. "As many of us know, the fashion industry is one of the largest polluters of our environment."
"I think there's lots that appeals to me," Anna said. "But I would say that the number-one thing would be being able to talk to customers directly on a regular basis, really trying to understand what goes through their mind as they shop, and try to help create the best possible experience for them."
Tracy, who started her career in fashion, then moved into interior design said, "I've always believed that good design is not just about a product or a thing," she said. "It's a universal concept. And I've always loved all aspects of design."
Meanwhile, for Janet, it was just fashion itself that drew her in.
"I was the little girl who always dreamed of and aspired to be surrounded by beautiful things," she said. "It sounds funny, but my father was into fashion, and I was into fashion."
What skills are the most important to have
For Anna, it’s the ability to collaborate. "I've worked with a lot of different teams, a lot of different personalities," she said. "And it's really just kind of adjusting and figuring out ways to work with one another in an effective way."
For Tracy, it’s the ability to market yourself. "Being able to market yourself is a skill that takes a lot of time to develop," she said. "What are your strengths? And how do you promote that and even market that to other people?"
For Janet, it’s interpersonal skills. "What's really important is not just being an effective communicator," she said. "For me, it's also about listening and gauging the response. I'm actually quite introverted, and when I'm meeting with colleagues or clients, a lot of what I do is listen and observe. Because for us, it's about relationships."
For Colette, its good old-fashioned believing in yourself, as informed by her own life experiences. "My parents are immigrants, they came to this country with a very clear plan," she said. "Venturing into the role of entrepreneurship is very gray and unstable and worrisome for someone like a parent, right? I really had to work on honing in on my belief in myself, and my ability to take something in my mind and transition it into something that's physical and tangible."
Advice for future graduates
"Don't be afraid to be flexible and open-minded to what's out there," Tracy said. "I've seen a lot of people start their career with a very narrow-minded view of the future, and there's only one path that they can see to getting there. That's where I've seen a lot of people give up. I think it's really important to know that there's lots of different roads to get to your goal."
Anna agreed. "When I went to join the workforce, I didn't even really know the world of design that was out there," she said. "But you know, even joining Aritzia, I'm wowed by all of the different roles that there are within the organization."
"I would say, relationships, so, know who your client is, both internal and external," said Janet. "And how you learn who they are is by getting in front of them. We tend to make a lot of assumptions, maybe it's their personality over social media, but nothing is better than spending a day with them, a lunch with them, or working a shift with them to really understand who they are."
"I feel like a lot of times fear of failure keeps a lot of us really small," Colette says. "And we're afraid of taking that risk. But if you don't take the risk, you're not going to win big either, right? I had one of my biggest failures, when I failed one of the biggest exams in my entire life. And that was a really pivotal point in my life, because it allowed me to really understand the direction that I wanted to go in."
Questions from students
"One hundred percent, I feel that sustainability is really where the fashion industry is going in a lot of ways," Colette said, when asked about sustainability. "Not just fashion, pretty much all industries have some level of sustainability woven into the fabric now. I have noticed a big change in the past couple of years, pretty much every major retailer is trying to incorporate some level of sustainability into their brands."
A question of corporate versus retail, Janet says going from one to the other is a valuable experience.
"I've been able to be on the front lines for the majority of my career," she said. "So I have a perspective that is very different than some of my counterparts who have never worked frontline."
"Funny enough," Tracy added, "as a corporation, Canadian Tire, many of us will spend the American Thanksgiving, the Thursday before Black Friday, working in the stores, which is typically one of the busiest days."
What if you’re an international student looking to get hired at a Canadian company?
"I would say do your research," Tracy said. "If you're having an interview with a Canadian company, take some time to get to know that company." Another important thing to remember: They want to hire international students, for different perspectives. "Your perspective, as someone new to Canada, it's always very interesting," she continues. "We speak with a lot of designers from outside of Canada. There's something so wonderful about their observations when they're new to the country, they look at things very differently."
And what to do on the day you graduate?
"Well, first celebrate," Colette says. "And then secondly, find ways to capitalize off of the skills that you already have. We live in an amazing world where we can open up a business through Instagram, we can open up a website through Shopify, and we can do a lot on our own. In this day and age, we're very, very lucky. So find a way to take a look at yourself, what have you acquired through your education, or already have, and how can you monetize that?"
"I think I get some good honest feedback from a mentor, a professor, a friend, in terms of what their actual strengths are," Janet said. "Sometimes our likes are not our strengths. So it's about really establishing what we're good at"
"Coming out of school, it's such a great feeling of accomplishment," Tracy said. "I know you're probably tired, but also feeling a bit of energy coming out of school. And I'd say, take that and just dive right in. Keep that momentum going, and that will definitely push you forward."
By Anthony Geremia