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Many
fine creative fashion talents have seen their up-and-coming
design ventures crash and burn, all due to one harsh fact: They
didn't understand-or regard well enough-the business side.
Many
tine creative fashion talents have seen their up-and-coming
design ventures crash and burn, all due to one harsh fact: They
didn't understand-or regard well enough-the business side.
Today,
thanks to the generosity of the Los Angeles apparel education
and business communities, such training is abundantly available
to the motivated. One industry veteran in particular, Henry
Cherner of Apparel Information Management System (AIMS), an
apparel-based business management software company, has been
spreading his business savvy everywhere he can. He donates
software and hardware,
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Key
to the program is developing a facility with apparel- anc
business-related software programs such as AIMS, which Cherner
has donated to the school.
"The kids are ready when they get
here," she says. "We use the computer as much as we possibly
can, even on the creative side. That's the way it's going to be in the
industry."
For
those without the benefit of formal business training, there were few
information resources until four years ago, when industry veteran
Frances Harder founded the non-profit group Fashion Business
Incorporated. "I've been out there and done it,"she says,
"and realized that if I'd had the FBI as source for information,
I would have made it sooner:'
FBI,
with the support of the City of Los Angeles, the Department of Water
and Power, the Ben and Joyce Eisenberg Foundation, which provided
space in The New Mart, and a host of |
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lends his expertise by training students and workers how to
navigate the increasingly perilous apparel industry waters.
Two
educational institutions that have long serviced the apparel
industry are Los Angeles Trade-Technical College and Cal Poly
Pomona, offering two- and four-year programs, respectively. Both
degrees |
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industry sponsors, serves as an
informational clearinghouse/ meeting place/ educational arena for those
trying to make their way. "Everything we do is about networking,
sourcing, working together," says Harder. "Some of it is
getting interns into possible jobs; some are small manufacturers who
need to identify what they need to do to get to the next level. FBI
gives
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are designed to immerse prospective apparel workers in marketplace
realities.
At
Trade-Tech, Fashion Merchandising department chair Adrienne Zinn
has spent 12 years teaching mainly minority students how to
create and run their own shops. "People who are owners or
merchandisers need all the help they can get," she says.
"Many, many in the business don't even know what they are
earning."
In
the course of the two-year program, students learn how to formulate
business plans, capitalize a business, put together financial and
profit-and-loss statements, understand the intricacies of wholesale
and retail merchandising, and-indispensable these days-master computer
applications, with donated AIMS software and a computer-rental fee of
a mere $7. "The only way you can build business is with
technology," Zinn says. "You've got to have a vision and be
creative, but you also have to have business skills. You can't just
think of this as a fashion show:'
Cal
Poly Pomona's four-year Bachelor of Science program "stresses the
management, the running of a business, and overseeing people within a
business," explains Apparel Merchandisinc and Management chair
Betty Tracy. "We saw a need within the apparel industry, and
talked with lots of people in the industry before we wrote the
curriculum."
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them the expertise that can help them:"
FBI's
annual membership entitles members to discounts on seminars, training
modules, trade resources, and special events, among other benefits.
Cherner, an FBI sponsor, has donated hardware and software to help
train members, and offers to rent AIMS on the Internet business
software to members at an affordable monthly rate, also donating back
annual FBI membership for the first year.
"It's
so much harder to make it now, with offshore manufacturing, retail
stores with their chargebacks and demands and squeezes," Harder
says. "If we can help the small creative designers, in the long
run we'll be helping the retailers-and the consumers. We can't make it
happen, but we can help make it happen."
 For
more information contact Henry Cherner at AIMS, (310) 5562215 or
www.aimstsi.com.
Better
management means a better bottom line.
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