Visioneers

As an instructor at Madison College in the Fashion Marketing program I try to participate in all things relating to the program. I believe wholeheartedly in our program and in guiding young adults toward their future career choices.  This holds true when I work each day in the Madison School District as well.  I love asking students what they'll do once they transition after school and always ask, "If you could do anything in life, what would it be?"  

I was lucky enough to get this guidance in high school and went on to an amazing career in fashion by first going to UW-Stout in the Apparel Design and Manufacturing program. This created a foundation for my career as the CAD Coordinator at Maurices, Inc as well as the Visual Merchandiser for Forever 21 and ultimately to being the owner of  UpShift and teaching at Madison College.  I hope to pay it forward by guiding others and aim to do this everyday either through teaching or by connecting with my staff at the boutique.

This month I joined two of my colleagues and one of our students to attend Visioneers, an amazing program hosted by UW-Milwaukee's Peck School of Arts, that focuses on bringing the design world and young students together. It's a statewide learning program for high school and middle school students interested in art design where professional designers in each field offers feedback on student completed projects.  We oversaw the fashion design sector of this program and got to meet with 18 students from all over the state that brought forth amazing designs, a ton of passion, and so much incredible energy.  I seriously got to see the future of the fashion world.  

It was a great day filled with so much energy and creativity,  I got to be around future designers that think so much differently than current designers.  The students I worked with were from high school and seemed infinitely wiser than I was in high school (20 years ago.....*gasp).  These students were articulate, patient, kind, creative, mature, collaborative, and most importantly forward with their thinking.  

Here are 3 of the designs we were lucky to judge: