Cal State Long Beach fashion students can strut through campus with pride.
CSULB’s fashion merchandising and design program was ranked among the top 50 best fashion schools in the U.S. in April by Fashion-Schools.org.
Among private and public design schools across the nation, the website has ranked CSULB No. 38 for the 2012-13 school year.
The team of writers, designers, researchers and developers behind the website put out various lists of colleges and base their rankings on “academic reputation, admission selectivity, depth and breadth of the program and faculty, and geographic location.”
Director of CSULB’s FMD program Suzanne Marshall said that as proud as she is of the achievement, she hopes to do even better in the future.
“I think it’s certainly an honor, yet at the same time, we would hope to be ranked even higher as the years go on,” she said.
Marshall said the ranking has already earned additional funding for the program, allowing the program to renovate its labs.
“We are getting three labs remodeled,” Marshall said. “The main one we’re starting this summer is our computer lab. We’ll get new configurations, new computers, new stations — everything is going to be redone.”
She said the next to be revamped is the program’s design lab, which they use for sewing and construction.
CSULB alumna Breana Chew, who graduated from the program this spring, said it was the hands-on experience she received from the program that better prepared her for a fashion career.
“I think having the big fashion show [Campus Couture] at the end of the year helps,” said Chew, who was the public relations coordinator for this year’s fashion show. “We had great resources, the instructors are very knowledgeable, and they’ve been in the industry themselves, so they know what they’re talking about.”
Marshall said the fashion show is a good way to train leaders because it’s one of the biggest student-organized events.
“Even though you’re not in the fashion show per say, because the fashion show happens, it’s good for all of [CSULB],” Marshall said. “The more we get our name out there, the better leaders we recruit or train, the better it is for the program, which is what I tell all my students all the time.”
This year, LA Fashion Week Producer Mikey Koffman attended the fashion show and chose five CSULB students to take to the October event.
Although Koffman was supposed to choose only one student for the emerging designer category for LA Fashion Week, Marshall said Koffman could not make up her mind and chose two.
“There are only five designers in the emerging designers category, and [CSULB] now gets to occupy two of those spaces,” Marshall said. “I think that alone will give our program a huge boost.”
Marshall said Koffman also chose three other students to be in the vendor room at the LA Fashion Week event, where each student will be able to showcase three garments each.
“That is such a privilege because that usually costs thousands of dollars,” Marshall said.
Chew said she is proud to have graduated from the FMD program.
“I hear a lot of good things that employers say about CSULB students, especially the fashion merchandising and design [program],” Chew said. “I am just very proud to have been part of it.”
Marshall said CSULB’s reputation as a successful design school isn’t beneficial for just the FMD program but also for the entire campus as a whole.
“The more people [the fashion industry] knows from CSULB, the better they think about the college in general,” Marshall said. “More people will want to come here, and it elevates the school in everybody’s eyes. People will suddenly know we have a design school, and that’s one other thing we can be known for.”