International spotlight shines on UD's partnerships with industry

1:27 p.m., Oct. 1, 2015--A presentation at the 2015 World Expo in Milan, Italy, in September highlighted the University of Delaware’s fashion education programs, particularly the projects that engage students with external partners in real-world experiences in the global apparel industry.

Kelly Cobb, assistant professor in the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies, presented the paper at Domus Design Institute at the Fashion Colloquia associated with the world’s fair. The paper, “On-the-Ground: Integrating Sustainability into the Higher Learning Curriculum Through Factory-Floor Experiences,” focused on the future of fashion education.

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The theme of the Milan World Expo, which continues through October, is “Feeding the Planet/Energy for Life,” and the fashion colloquia’s theme centered on feeding fashion energy through education. 

In her presentation, Cobb described some of the UD projects that can serve as models of engaging students and expanding their global and cultural understanding of apparel manufacturing.

She described the business as “a highly globalized industry with a supply chain that stretches around the world, almost completely disengaged from the consumer.”

“A significant challenge we face as educators is how best to prepare students to communicate and apply their understanding of ethical, labor and environmental issues from a fashion industry perspective,” Cobb said. “It is imperative that we provide meaningful engaged learning opportunities for students by immersion in the realities of industry.”

Activities with students at UD, she said, have involved a variety of industry partners, from small startups to large multinational corporations, with a focus on sustainability. “In collaborating with external partners we raise the bar for fashion design education, mining new potentials for students by providing on-the-ground research experiences that deepen the level in which students engage in the industry.”

Cobb described a few specific projects:

• “From the Ground Up 2012,” a collaboration between design and apparel management students from UD and Philadelphia University “on the ground” in Delaware, Texas and Guatemala with Denimatrix, a vertically integrated producer of fashion denim. 
• “Cotton Lab 2010,” in which fashion design students from UD and technical design students at Instituto Polytecnico-Centomericano in Honduras combined talents to develop and produce innovative and cotton ensembles geared toward emerging target markets that embody a meshing of culture, tradition and innovation. 
• “Ethical Fashion Project 2009,” a collaboration with Gildan, The Fair Labor Association and the Central American Polytechnic Institute, in which students examined the range of considerations that should go into the design and production of an ethical garment, such as selecting materials that support a healthy environment, examining labor practices to identify suppliers with verifiable and good standards, and conducting responsible interactions and exchanges between apparel firms and suppliers. 

Article by Ann Manser

Photos by Kathy F. Atkinson and courtesy of Kelly Cobb