Starting your own local Fashion Club

[kasmslo]

Recently I've been thinking about starting a fashion club locally in my community, seeing there is none actually in existence at the time being. I thought it would be a great way to get some leadership experience and to connect and network with others in my area.
I'm still in high school but I'm also an enrichment student at my local community college. I was thinking about starting a fashion club there and I've already contacted the college fashion department and I am going to speak for a few minutes at some of the classes... I've also created and printed out some flyers to hand out and post around.
So the thing is, I was wondering... is the time invested in fashion clubs really worth it? How much time of my life will it take? Does it look good on applications/resumes? How can I get a steady inflow of people to be interested and participate?
If you are involved in a fashion club currently, what kind of things do you like to do within the club environment? I'm thinking about starting fundraisers, contests, and scholarships for the students... events like that.
Thanks!

 

[BetteT]

There was a little discussion about fashion clubs earlier in this thread about high school student activities. Not really any good info, though. I don't think it's something that happens very often but maybe someone else will have some experience with a fashion club.

Certainly, if you succeed in getting this off the ground and making it sucessful, it would look good on a resume ... especially if you want to show leadership and self started qualities.

 

[gius]

What would you want to get out of your fashion club?
What is the main goal..
and what aspect of fashion would you focus on, since there can be a lot...
personal style, design, sewing...
If you focus on a subject you really like, it will be easy to come up with ideas and to really lead your group



I guess I am already in a club myself..
I do private lessons, but I often meet other apprentices..
We have get-togethers every once in a while,
watching a YSL film and discussing the designs, having dinner
having lunch and talking about fashion week, talking about techniques used...
And we have small exhibitions when one of us has completed a set of works...

Generally what keeps me in is that I always get something out of it at the end of the day whether it is something to improve my own work, in terms of inspiration or techniques that have been taught during the day.

 

[kasmslo]

What would you want to get out of your fashion club?
What is the main goal..
and what aspect of fashion would you focus on, since there can be a lot...
personal style, design, sewing...
If you focus on a subject you really like, it will be easy to come up with ideas and to really lead your group.

Originally my main goal for the club is to incorporate small events within the club like contests with prizes (probably money raised from fundraisers), as an example, to improve students' skills in fashion... like say a fashion illustration contest or a small design contest... my main goal is to make the whole club an education experience.
I don't know how far I can take that. I was also thinking about recording or bringing fashion documentaries that I own like Lagerfeld Confidential or when I record Carine Roitfeld's little documentary thats coming up on CNN... little things like that for fun while people wait between classes. Also having a fashion related bulletin board to post local fashion events, internships, or job openings...

 

[gius]

i see.. so would you need to hire someone else to be the teacher?

 

[kasmslo]

Hire someone to be the teacher? Well, I contacted one of the teachers that is part of the fashion department and all she has to do is run it by some of the other teachers in the department for approval, I suppose. This is all taking place at my local college.
And then all that's left is getting some members to take part...
I don't know how the teacher thing works, do I have to have a teacher that is willing to back-up or represent the club or something?

 

[gius]

Ah because you wrote your goal is for education.. and to improve the students' skills
If you were the leader/teacher, you would have to know your stuff
in order to point out what is wrong and right in the student's design and steer them to solutions to problems...

 

[kasmslo]

Oh, I see what you mean.
I suppose what I was getting at was that my goal is to lever the students to improve their skills through contests etc. which would judged by teachers in the fashion department or maybe some other talented students, if I could get that to work.
I suppose there would have to be some fashion teachers in the club environment... not sure if that would work or not based on their schedules...

 

[Meg]

well I think it would be hard to run contests as such, because most people aren't going to donate (unless it's just a random bake sale) to a fashion student's internal competition. Most fashion clubs at universities have an end goal of raising money for a fashion show or, in this case if you want the educational aspect, your end goal could be a larger contest with displays set up or something to that effect. Your in a cc with a fashion department so that does make some things easier. I like the idea of screening documentaries and with the internet, it would be easy to put together a little NYC F/W '09/'10 clip reel and show that and get that to spur discussion on trends, techniques, the fashion industry as a whole, etc. But I will just say, be prepared for people not to be on the level of tfs. And I mean that. Even with a fashion department (on Project Runway Canada, there was a contestant (who was kicked off 2nd) who did not know who YSL was). There are fashion groups at my university, but I never join them because I know and have talked with people and they don't have the interest or knowledge on the level that tfs is at. So I find that I'm surrounded with people who might talk about their mom's vintage chanel that they just got, but wouldn't know who Nicholas Ghesquiere is, or Pierre Poiret, etc.

 

[kasmslo]

^ Yeah, I realize that it's going to be super hard to get donators or a cash flow. I was thinking a possible idea is to get other businesses from my community involved with the club like fabric shops or even clothing stores to provide discounts exclusively for the club members or students involved in the fashion department or provide gift cards to use as "prizes" for contests and whatnot.
I was also thinking about what you pointed out, the lack of fashion know-how. Kind of sad, but I suppose that comes with time? They would have to figure out common designers name's and Houses one way or another, so I figure maybe that could be incorporated as a club's learning experience like through documentaries and (like you suggested) fashion show reels, I suppose. (Also, bless that poor soul who didn't know who YSL was. )

 

[gius]

meg i have been there too..
and i was taking a sewing class (i dropped out early)
i felt you were just surrounded by bored people looking to socialise
they are such trouble makers

even now in my drafting class there are a few where it doesn't make sense why they are there..but they are very few, mostly because the class is so intense, there is so much homework
it's a technical class

my "club" is what happens after.. the ones who continue after a difficult class.. i wonder if also the high price of the next lessons that i'm taking is what keeps the bad people away you have to just really want to be there.

 

[kasmslo]

Kind of as an update, throughout the past few weeks I've started getting this whole club idea going around my college campus. I made a website, CafePress store with "official" merchandise (hopefully to get some cash for the club), passed out flyers with information, and contacted all the teachers in the fashion department.
I got the whole load of paperwork that I have to do in order to start forth this club. It's quite a sum of work... I've just started typing out the constitution and bylaws. All of this just to be accepted as an official club, not knowing whether or not we'll be accepted or not!
It's also quite frustrating because I haven't gotten responses from anyone interested in becoming members or officials. I have an advisor easily, but the rest is pretty hard to obtain.
I'm putting flyers everywhere around campus and in all the fashion department classrooms. Is there any other way that I can get people to respond or be interested in becoming members of the club?
Also, are there any guides online or anyone with helpful advise out there about typing up club bylaws? Like things including how people will apply for memberships, the types of memberships (like active and inactive), having nominations and elections, impeachment, etc. I'd appreciate the help.

 

[kasmslo]

Just as a small update, I got an interview with my school newspaper for promotion. This may be a good idea for anyone who wants to start their own club as well.
It's really quite fun, I got to have my picture taken (which means dressing up, which is always fun) and what I found really promising is getting my word out there and being heard on my viewpoint of fashion.
I can't wait to see what kind of word I get from this point on... at least from interested members, etc.

 

[CanonMan]

I just made a post in a topic on marketing a business about this actually. From what I have seen in Denver there are two that do well with the "club" thing. They aren't really clubs so much as hubs or outlets for fashion I suppose.

One has it's own botique that a number of designers share. They have the back set up for work, and the front set up to sell. They also host events pretty frequently, have a myspace page that gets a lot of people going through it looks like. I'm not a designer so I don't go there all the time but it looks like it offers a 'club' type of atmosphere for the desgners to work together and learn from eachother.

The other one in town shoots out weekly newsletter emails with what is going on that week in the local fashion scene. Has a web site focused on promoting it's members work. Hosts events. All that jazz.

I recently shot some promo work for a group that was putting together flyers for a fashion show. They spoke with the local Children's Hospital and turned it into a fund raiser for the hospital. They used a mix of their contacts as well as the hospitals to bring in a lot of people for a cause. They get good publicity out of it, and the hospital gets a good amout of donations.

just a few examples that you might be able to work off of.

 

[gius]

i really like this sharing a space idea^ i used to live in an art studio with several flats in the building that artists lived in. and the landlord was trying to get papers in transforming the first floor into a shop to sell the artists' works. it was declined though, because the area wasn't suited to parking...

i had a mate in college who used to sell her things at a small shop downtown. she'd do office and sales work for them part-time. it was just a group of friends who bought a nice building and that's where they put all their wares