By Max Slepian
Most of us go through life in a comfort zone. We like to start our day with the breakfast we like, do the job we are use to doing or go to the classes we signed up for. But every once and a while we are put in a completely unfamiliar situation and we have to learn how to deal with it. I was recently thrown into one when I attended my first Fashion Marketing class.
I was one of two men in a classroom with 30 women. In any other situation this ratio of males to females would’ve simply been laughed off as an advantage for the guys, but in this case there was much more in store.
The instructor started the lesson by reassuring us that it was not necessary to be a fashion or marketing expert but naturally it helps to know about these areas. I didn’t know much about marketing and besides the Project Runway marathons that I had to endure with my mom when I was still in high school, I was pretty clueless about the subject of fashion. After all, I was the guy who wore plaid shorts with a striped t-shirt just this past summer, and couldn’t decide if I should rock my “senior citizen” New Balance running shoes or Leggo socks with neon green Crocs. It goes without saying that I was clueless about fashion and made no secret of it when we made class introductions about our backgrounds and areas of study. In a sea of fashion and retail majors, I was the lone undeclared student.
Our first exercise was to watch the 2015 Milano Fashion Week runway and provide three adjectives that encompass the essence of the collections and a type of car you would market with each. As the first collection came down the runway, I noticed the dresses were green, yellow and “flowy,” which seemed like somewhat sufficient adjectives. Afterwards, we were asked to share our chosen adjectives. Words like “feminine,” “chic,” and “earthy” were some common adjectives while not one person said anything close to “yellow.”
I was grateful the professor didn’t call on me to share my disappointing adjectives, but my luck ran out when I was asked to share the car I would chose to market with this collection with. My mind started racing for a good answer. I was thinking that a general consensus for the collection was that it was earthy and before I knew it I blurted out “uhh… a Prius?” The class burst into laughter and I quickly realized that the environmental advantages of a hybrid car doesn’t immediately qualify it as a fashionable pairing.
My fashion knowledge has yet to vastly improve, but after time my presence in the class has seemed to become less a fish out of water. I probably don’t have the exact response to answer the question of how to deal with a situation in which we are totally unfamiliar with. But if I have learned one thing, it’s that you should try out unfamiliar contexts even if the content seems unknown or you perceive to less knowledgeable of a subject matter compared to others. Dive in headfirst and don’t be afraid to speak, because if we are never called out on our mistakes there is no way to learn from them.
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