Preparing students for careers in the fashion industry is the number one job of a fashion educator, and to the world’s top schools, that means giving students access to industry standard tools that will set themselves up for success for their first job and beyond.
At Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, students in the fashion program use ApparelMagic apparel software to simulate a fashion business, learning real world skills as they use the ERP/PLM/CRM system in class.
Drexel, one of the most prestigious universities in the nation, is ranked by Business of Fashion in the top 10 fashion schools worldwide and top 3 in the US in their 2015 Global Fashion Schools Ranking.
With extensive course offerings in fashion design, merchandising, and business, the fashion department introduced core educational initiatives by teaching its students real world applications using ApparelMagic.
“ApparelMagic connects the missing link between apparel design studies and the actuality of effective business and supply chain management,” said one professor on the software in the classroom.
Indeed, by using ApparelMagic, students learn skills they’ll still use in the fashion industry long after graduating. Drexel’s final project is comprehensive, including sourcing materials from real vendors, estimating costs with actual international factories, and using ApparelMagic all the way from writing production purchase orders to invoicing customers to even sending their vendors a check at the end of the process.
Students completing the course this fall were excited to see how vocabulary and processes learned in lectures translate into industry use, and with their new knowledge of both the fashion industry and ApparelMagic gives them a competitive advantage attracting future employers.
The course was so popular amongst students that Drexel will be introducing an additional seminar in the winter quarter to allow more students the opportunity to use ApparelMagic. Educators hope to offer ApparelMagic in additional courses for fashion merchandising students during the 2016-2017 academic year.
For over 30 years, ApparelMagic, the leading apparel management software, has been at the forefront of technology and the cutting edge of fashion in the industry, helping businesses manage styles, customers, sales, inventory and accounting.
