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By Faith Roane
Photo by Sammantha Teller
For the past two and a half years, FLY — Fashion Loves You — has functioned as a community-engaging outlet for fashion students at FUA. The vintage and consignment shop as well as space for emerging local designers is a CEMI, that is Community Engagement Member Institution integrated to the FUA campus, where students gain experience in their field in a both academic and professional environment.
The Visual Merchandising class at FUA reinforces the skills they are taught in the classroom by attending to the visual aspects of the store. The class decides on a theme each time they rearrange the store; this involves picking the iconic piece and totem images to use, the overall feeling that they want to achieve, the division of clothing items, among other things. When they have completed the arranging process, they receive two sets of feedback: one from the Visual Merchandising instructor Sandra Nannini almost immediately after completion and the other from store manager Gaia Poli, who analyzes the practical set up of the store in addition to how customers respond to the new arrangement. These feedbacks allow students to gain a more applicable knowledge of visual merchandising.
FLY caters to this class by providing the space for arrangement, the pieces to arrange, and the professional environment in which to explore their options as a floor layout designer. Find out more about what's happening at FLY at the store's FB page. To find out what future fashion and acessory courses will be offered through FAST, please consult the FUA academic schedules.
About the author/photographer:
Faith Roane and Sammantha Teller are Spring 2014 volunteers through FUA's SLD Community Outreach extracurricular program.