NYC's Fashion Industry Forges Ahead For the Next Generation

Last week during the CEO Apparel and Retail Summit Mayor Bloomberg announced the plans New York City has in store to revitalize the fashion industry and lay the groundwork for maintaining its strength for the future. The plan is an aggressive multiple point plan that will make the industry current and promote and cultivate new talent to lead the industry into the next generation.

The capital of the US apparel industry is New York City which employs 165,000 people and accounts for 5.5% of the city's workforce. With this being said, each year jobs and manufacturing continue to be moved overseas and out of the country so New York has reacted by developing a plan with the Mayor to preserve the heritage and industry that has played, and continues to play such an integral role in New York's economic structure and history.

The main points of the plan are as follows:

* NYC Fashion Fund, to help emerging designers gain access to capital and support services to produce their goods.


* Project Pop-up, an annual competition to promote new and original retail concepts. Temporary pop-up stores could be created to test some of the ideas generated.


* New York City Fashion Draft, an annual event to coordinate the recruitment of college students from the United States and around the world who are interested in fashion management.


* Fashion Campus NYC, offering business seminars led by industry executives, and networking opportunities to summer interns.


* New York City Fashion Fellows, which will recognize 30 rising stars in business-related fashion management who are now often overlooked when the industry hands out awards to those in the creative end of the business.


* Designer as Entrepreneur, to help emerging designers boost their business skills through a boot camp that focuses on business plans, financial management and e-commerce.

Although New York, followed by LA, is the apparel capital in the US there are several programs, funds and resources that have the same goal in mind. Each month new resources present themselves online and in brick and mortar. Being one such resource, MODEcollective will continue to use this same philosophy in an effort to arm young talent and students with as much information and resources as possible to become active participants in the US fashion and apparel industry.