Lois Kate Kolkhorst (far right) traveled to New York City Sept. 5-8 for the opening weekend of NYFW, joining students from other schools across the country.
TCU Athletics, through its trademark licensing program, and the university’s Department of Fashion Merchandising teamed up again this year to send a TCU student to New York Fashion Week: The Shows for a VIP educational experience.
Junior Lois Kate Kolkhorst traveled to New York City Sept. 5-8 for the opening weekend of NYFW, joining students from other schools across the country for this exclusive experience. Kolkhorst enjoyed tickets to fashion shows as well as participated in an industry panel, a special licensee meeting and other VIP experiences.
“My favorite aspect of this experience was definitely getting to go to the fashion shows,” said Kolkhorst. “I’d never been to a fashion show before and it exceeded any and every expectation. The music, the lights and, obviously, the clothes created such an amazing production of the artist’s vision for their collection.”
This month, fashion merchandising majors will have the opportunity to enter a contest through their classes to be selected to go to NYFW in spring 2020. Entrants will put together styled outfits using TCU-branded products. Faculty and staff from the Department of Fashion Merchandising and TCU Branding and Licensing will select the finalists.
Then, the TCU campus community will be invited to select their favorite finalist’s outfit by visiting the visual display window outside the new Fine Arts Building and going online to vote. Voting will take place Thursday, Sept. 26-Tuesday, Oct. 1 with a winner announced later that week.
“This ongoing partnership between the Department of Fashion Merchandising and TCU Licensing and Branding provides an incredible opportunity for our students to see the inner workings of the fashion industry up close,” said Janace Bubonia, chair of the Department of Fashion Merchandising. “Networking with industry professionals during this experience is also hugely impactful for professional development.”
Kolkhorst echoes that sentiment.
“Being able to participate in this experience was such a unique addition to my fashion education. The amount of knowledge about the industry that I gained during NYFW is incomparable to any other experience I will ever have,” said Kolkhorst. “Meeting people who are actually working every day in the fast paced world of fashion really reassured me that fashion is exactly what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.”