Nashville Fashion Week Supports Fashion Talent and Offers Career Advice

Nashville Fashion Week is a city-wide celebration of Nashville’s thriving fashion and retail community and its vast array of creative talent that features local, regional and national design talent in fashion events and shows, and encouraging both Nashvillians and visitors to explore the city’s diverse fashion and retail spaces throughout the week with promotions, partnerships and educational workshops.

This year’s annual Nashville Fashion Week’s 2014 Industry Panels took place at 429 Event Space at 429 Chestnut St. and held four panels that featured a moderated discussion followed by audience-driven Q&A sessions. Panelists and moderators at this year’s Industry Panels included local and national designers, fashion executives, journalists, and bloggers.

At the Industry Panel entitled “It's What You Don't Know: A Conversation With the CFDA's Johanna Stout”, the speaker, Johanna Stout, who is a professional development manager of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) has held a successful career where she has helped hundreds of fashion designers define and master the great unknowns including the ways to operate and own a business.

During this Industry Panel’s 90-minute conversation with the Nashville fashion consultant Libby Callaway, Johanna provided background about the CFDA's Fashion Incubator program, which has so far helped 40 small fashion brands grow by providing low-cost studio space, business mentoring, educational seminars, and networking opportunities. Stout also discussed how Nashville's fashion community and local fashion designers might grow using similar techniques that the CFDA’s Fashion Incubator program had used.

As the Professional Development Manager for the CFDA Fashion Incubator, where she manages all aspects of the program’s development strategies, partnerships and execution, Johanna Stout’s best career advice is “Don't make it to big, work with less brands to have more quality” and also, she evoked “you need a point person to manage the program and help drive the community.”

The moderator, Libby Calloway, who has worked as a fashion editor, newspaper columnist, wardrobe stylist, vintage clothing dealer, and costume designer, and is now currently self-employed as a creative consultant for the brand, Billy Reid, gave the audience the great advice that “the secret to getting ahead is getting started, listening carefully, and creating a business plan.” 

Youtube Link to Journalism 500 Multimedia Project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cMszUa8O4&feature=youtu.be