Graduate Fashion Week Charity Event Leads to Industry Employment

Tuesday 24th of February 2009 11:32:20 PM

Graduate Fashion Week Charity Event Leads to Industry Employment

It’s one thing to get a degree in textiles or fashion design and another thing to actually get a job in the industry. There is a lot of competition in the fashion industry, but there are plenty of opportunities for employment if the graduate knows where to look. That is one of the goals of Graduate Fashion Week – to bring together new fashion design talent and potential employers.

Every year the Graduate Fashion Week charity event is held in the UK. This year it is at Earls Court on June 7. Fashion and design school graduates are given a chance to showcase their talents. Creativity needs an outlet in order to be showcased to the right audience. During this event, new designers can show off every kind of fashion from sweatshirts to futuristic dresses in order to catch the eye of design houses and fashion retailers. River Island has been a major sponsor of this event and has also employed 69 graduates over the last 4 years and 25 of them were discovered during Graduate Fashion Week. This is proof of the success of the program.

Graduate Fashion Week is a charity event and is sustained solely through sponsorships and donations. One of the interesting paradoxes of difficult economic times is the fact that creativity flourishes. This is because retailers must find new ways to attract limited consumer dollars. Competition is much more intense during a recession and the most creative garment designs will attract the attention of a distracted consumer market. New ideas drive the fashion industry forward.

As the CEO of River Island, Richard Bradbury, was quoted as saying, “Our industry thrives on new ideas and I think that now, more than ever before, it is important to inject new enery and life into our design studios and creative teams. Our sponsorship of Graduate Fashion Week has put us in the enviable position of being amongst the first to witness and embrace the emergence of some of the brightest new stars in the industry and I am proud to say that a large percentage of our current team is full of talent sourced at this exciting event.”