Who Knew?

Today marked the first day of my "Study Tour" class in New York City.  The class, which meets every Tuesday from 9:30am-12:30pm, is designed to expose students to numerous elements of domestic fashion markets.  It will include tours of designer showrooms (plans are in the making for seeing Tommy Hilfiger's!), manufacturing sites, buying offices, etc.  

Lucky for my class, our teacher is R. Scott French, who has experience in nearly all aspects of the fashion industry, from design to retail (Google him...seriously, his resume is impressive!).  He has even shown seven collections on the runways of Bryant Park during Fashion Week.  Quite possibly the next best thing about him after his first-hand knowledge of the industry is his modesty.  Seriously, I had no idea about his credentials until I Googled him after class.  (And his quirky, straight-forward personality is the cherry on the sundae.)

R. Scott French

Anyway, since it's miserably and depressingly rainy in the city today, we held off on a tour of the Garment District and stayed in to learn about how much a typical fashion show in Lincoln Center might cost.

Even though I've been part of major fashion shows at Kent State, I never even considered some of the elements required to put on a stellar, professional production...

To secure the venue alone costs $30,000! Ya...and then you have to throw in such expenses as staging, lighting, photography/videography, models, backstage catering, invitations...it all comes out to be somewhere in the ballpark of $120,000 (and the extra extravagant, larger, big-name shows cost even more!)!

The only two elements of the show where I guessed costs correctly were the music ($500), and miscellaneous expenses ($1,000).

More examples of outrageous prices: Postage of the invitations alone can cost in the ballpark of $1,500.  Creating samples (anywhere from about three samples per about 40 looks in a show), can cost $36,000!

Who knew?

Needless to say, I learn something new every day.