Fashion in Detroit Symposium at The College for Creative Studies

Is Detroit coming back? Totally!!! I probably should have bought a house there when it was only a few thousand dollars. Lol, oh well. I guess I am not so good at investing. Is Detroit a fashion city? Of course! You may not know this, but there are many Nationally Recognized Fashion Designers from Detroit! John Varvatos, Tracy Reese, Kevan Hall and Anna Sui are just a few on the list. I just know there will be more and more nationally and internationally recognized fashion designers because of this excellent school—College for Creative Studies.

Last week I was invited to attend its first ever Fashion Accessories Design International Fashion Symposium to celebrate their first graduating class. I was so impressed by the high quality of work from the students. Below are just a few of them.

I had to take pictures with those future stars, right?

I have always wanted to be a fashion designer. If I ever decide to drop everything and go to school, this would be somewhere I would go. I could seriously see myself studying there. 😉

The whole celebration started at 2pm. Many industry leaders reviewed the students work for possible employment opportunities with companies like Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Adidas, Kenneth Cole, Eileen Fisher, Shinola and many more. The girl in the photo below already had the chance to work as an intern at Fossil watch this summer!

My personal highlight of the night has to be my chance to interview Anna Sui. I have known and adored her work since I was in China many years ago. She is also Chinese, so she has been an inspiration for me for a long time! I can’t believe how down-to-earth she is. It’s so funny to learn that she had been fired many times when she was working at corporate companies. Lol! So folks, if you have a hard time fitting in with corporate culture, it probably means you should become your own boss! Anyway, she also shared her struggles with the new changes brought to the industry by ever changing technologies. Overall, it shows again that success has no short-cut. It requires a vision with day in and day out hard work.

After the interview, we moved to the Symposium “Fashion Manufacturing in Detroit” with Jen Guarino from Shinola, Cal McNeil from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Tracy Reese from Tracy Reese, Adrien Yakimov Roberts, Ambassador of London Graduate Fashion Week, Jarret Schlaff from Pingree Detroit, and Dora Szilagyi from Adidas. Followed by the Lecture “In Conversation With Fashion Icon Anna Sui and Aki Choklat, Chair, CCS Fashion Accessories Design”

By the way, since I mentioned Adidas, I have to share some great news about it. Kayla Donaldson, a senior in CCS’s Fashion Accessories Design won the Adidas Speedfactory x Foot Locker Design Challenge. Her winning design, “AM4DET,” was unveiled at an event on January 31 at the new Foot Locker Community Store on Eight Mile Road in Eastpointe. You can watch the short video to see this cool design!

Overall, it was an action packed event and I was completely blown away with such high quality content. The College for Creative Studies is giving Detroit one step up in the fashion game.

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Photo credit: Grace Liang

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Grace

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