Fashion companies, as business entities, have always been faced with balancing technological and operational necessities with creative and imaginative artistry. Today, this challenge is even more difficult to manage, as the industry’s traditional modes of operation (e.g. a multitude of physical retail locations, seasonally driven creation & distribution of products, near total dependency on foreign production, and the producer’s sense of fashion trend entitlement) has given way to omnichannel retailing, merchandise “drops” and smaller collections, reimagining production systems (aka “Supply Chains”)and the ascendency of the consumer as the controlling factor in confirming fashion trends and determining market outcomes, to name just a few of the disruptive changes. This has been underscored by the industry struggling to contain its role as a major source of global pollution, and global warming. The ESG/CSR Sustainability challenge has intensified Fashion’s need to manage these disruptive changes and incorporate new operational modes while, in the same space and time, embracing the new digital ways of thinking about business and fashion, including the impact of the Metaverse, NFT’s, Blockchain and virtual try-on processes and platforms. This course and this class is charged with finding new, untried but business-driven, solutions to these challenges placed within the Sustainability context.

Multidisciplinary (Undergraduate)
3 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2021)

MULT-UB 104-000 (10943)
09/02/2021 – 12/14/2021 Tue,Thu
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Late afternoon)
at Washington Square
Instructed by Carr, Jeffrey