News
July 7, 2017Collaboration Pairs Fashion Hopefuls with the Pros
Aspiring fashion professionals will work alongside fashion pros at the IDENTITY runway fashion show led by Electric City Couture and Corey Aldrich. The show will be held at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 8th at the NYS Museum at 222 Madison Ave. Albany NY. Assisting with the show will be graduates from the Fashion Edition, a fashion-focused career education and coaching program run by Mission Accomplished Transition Services, a local nonprofit that prepares millennials who are early their career with the transition from school to career, higher education and charitable activities .
The Fashion Edition helps aspiring young fashion professionals develop practical skills that will transfer to the fashion industry. It also creates a transition from school to entry-level employment in the fashion industry, encourages entrepreneurship and strengthens their understanding of the business behind the industry.
Mission Accomplished has partnered with the Alliance for a Creative Economy (ACE) to launch Fashion Upstate, a new initiative to create networking, education, support and employment opportunities for established and aspiring Capital Region fashion professionals.
“Fashion is happening in our region. We have several local high school and college students right in our back yard who are passionate about the industry and driven to make a fashion impact. They think they need to move to do that, but our partnership with Electric City Couture and ACE shows it can happen here,” said Carmen Duncan, chief coach and founder of Mission Accomplished.
The Fashion Upstate committee is headed by Duncan and Corey Aldrich, the Producer of Electric City Couture. Mission Accomplished will play an active part in helping to develop millennial educational programming as part of the new FASHION UPSTATE initiative.
“When I met the amazing young people in the Fashion Edition program, I thought to myself, “We’ve got to find jobs and opportunities for these kids,” said Maureen Stager, director of ACE. “ACE’s purpose is to develop the creative industries in the Capital Region, and we really look forward to making connections for Mission Accomplished and Fashion Edition participants — networking, tours, internships and much more.”
As part of this new commitment, Electric City Couture has created two paid fashion intern positions based around the IDENTITY show that will be filled by recent graduates of the Fashion Edition; ACE also created an assistant event producer position that is currently filled by a Fashion Edition graduate.
“Carmen’s pragmatic approach to developing solid business skills in our young people allows them to be better prepared to consider a job in the fashion industry. By combining our two approaches and bringing in additional participants, we can continue to create a stronger regional fashion pipeline that includes all areas of the industry,” Aldrich said.
“This strategic for-profit and nonprofit partnership demonstrates that the creative economy is dedicated to developing a school-to-career pipeline” Duncan said.
Applications for the next Fashion Edition will be available in September. For more information, visit
http://matransitionservices.org/sgkjfashionedition/.
