Written by Cassidy Ratner
As the end of the semester nears, so does the annual event that gives the University of Michigan’s community the ability to connect one’s academics with both business and fashion. The club, Michigan Fashion Media Summit, will be hosting its summit for students in and outside of the club alike in order to provide students with the opportunity to network, participate in keynote conversations, and interact with high end and extremely well known brands within the fashion and retail industries.
The Michigan Fashion Media Summit, also known as the MFMS, spends the vast majority of the scholastic year carefully and meticulously planning and cultivating the program for the event, which throughout all previous years has included an extensive list of famed brands and the individuals behind them. At last year’s summit, the keynote speaker series commenced with not only the vice president of diversity and inclusion working for Louis Vuitton, but the vice president of marketing and communications for Manolo Blahnik and the president of Steve Madden as well. The audience was able to listen to individuals such as these discuss and debate recent fashion trends as well as the thought process behind what it takes to launch a product and how one must go about marketing it. This enriching experience that the event provided allowed viewers to hear success stories and advice that they may one day have the ability to implement into a very own launch of their own.
Although the event is advertised to be geared towards fashion itself, it also incorporates elements of the industry that may often be overlooked. For example, in last year’s summit participants were given the ability to learn about Adobe and all of its programs. This offered students the opportunity to consider alternative aspects of the fashion and marketing industry, such as the technological side for those who may be more interested in the digital world as opposed to the design world.
The conversation-based layout of the event is part of what makes it so unique. In hosting breakout conversations as an alternative to simply listening to one presentation after another, the students involved are able to both feel more involved and listen to people interact with each other in a way that is significantly more meaningful than a mundane speech or overused lecture. To all students who are interested in the broader umbrella of fashion, I would not miss this event nor the opportunity to discover new sides to the market or delve deeper into others. This year’s summit will take place Friday, March 24.