- 3 cities (Edinburgh, London & Paris)
- 2 fashion exhibits (Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion (London) & Balenciaga: L’Oeuvre au Noir (Paris) )
- 94 stores (avg. each student)
- 164 pictures (avg. each student)
- 238,216 steps (about 90 miles avg. each student)
- too many to count: macaroons and croissants
- many new friends with similar interests and goals
- 2 trend service presentations (TrendStop & Trend Union)
- 1 final project
- many valuable learning experiences!
Prep work & Behind the scenes
The 3 credit course was led by Dr. Nancy Murray, Faculty Associate in Retailing & Consumer Behavior, School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin - Madison
& Robyn Waters, "The Trendmaster", former VP of Trend, Design & Product Development at Target
Students completed 2 weeks of on-line course work to prepare for their learning experience then launched their hands-on learning experience in Scotland at Dalkeith Palace
We started out at Dalkeith Palace in Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland. This is a historic house and the former seat of the Duke of Buccleuch. The present house was built in 1702 on the site of an earlier castle.
Dalkeith is just outside of Edinburgh. Students had the opportunity to explore Edinburgh by climbing Arthur's Seat and visiting the Edinburgh castle.
Dalkeith Palace provided us with a great place to get adjusted to the new time zone and to get to know one another in a relaxed atmosphere. We also had classroom learning here to prepare for our trend research in London and Paris.
We toured the historic St. Andrews golf course and are pictured here on the famous Swilcan Bridge.
london
london
Each morning began with a group breakfast where we reviewed what we learned the day before and prepped for what was to come.
Each student was assigned a product category to research the trends in stores and on the streets of London and Paris. Prior to departing the USA, each student completed a "Comp Shop" of their product category of analyzing the current offerings at mass market, inspirational and aspirational retailers.
Trends were spotted in stores, in store windows, on the street...
We recapped what we saw and learned after each major store or area.
Trendstop was one of the trendforecasting services we visited. They discussed their methodology and presented some of their forecasts.
PARIS
"Merci" was one of the many retail stores we shopped for trends. Merci was a unique and forward concept shop whose proceeds fund educational projects in south-west Madagascar.
During our Paris classroom time we recapped and connected the dots of the major themes we saw. The students started outlining their project for their specific product category.
Final projects outlining the trends in the student's assigned category were due one week after we departed Paris. Below are a few examples: