An AUP Alum Returns to the City of Lights for Fashion Week
When people imagine Paris Fashion Week, they immediately think about all the glamorous runway shows and parties, without a thought to what happens behind the scenes. However, I recently experienced a different and unique side of Paris Fashion Week. I spent a week running around grocery shopping, making coffee, and dressing models as I worked for a multi-label show room called Goods and Services. While I was volunteering, I met AUP graduate, Jennifer Cook. Before she returned to New York she was kind enough to sit down with me at a cafe in the Marais to chat about her work.
Image Credit: Tara Savarese
When Cook graduated four years ago with a degree in Masters of Arts in Global Communication, she was part of the Fashion Track program's inaugural class: "We were the guinea pigs. At the time there were only five people on the Fashion Track." Out of those five, Cook explained that all but one ended up in the fashion industry.
Cook has been lucky enough to come to Paris three to four times a year in the name of work. “Most people where I am at in my career are still not coming to the Paris market.” Her international experience of living abroad and studying at AUP has been marketable to employers, and has given her many professional opportunities.
For the past six months, Cook has been working as an account executive at Goods and Services, a multi-label showroom that launched five years ago in New York.
"We're really the liaison between the brand and the client, and currently the biggest client we represent is Frame Denim," she said.
Image Credit: Frame Denim
Goods and Services works with many smaller, younger brands that are just entering the market. "It's a really great way for start-up brands to build sales without taking on too much of a financial burden," Cook said. "It's helpful for them to have a team with the context and the knowledge already in place to build their sales."
Her job is to represent four different brands in the company's global sales, as well as to run the designers of high-end price points. According to Cook, the benefit of working in a showroom is its fast-paced environment, which can be a learning experience. "You meet a lot of people, and I’ve learned a lot about different stores and territories and the way other brands work.”
In the past Cook has also worked for “in-house” showrooms. "In-house is kind of fun because you get to see every step of the design process," she said. "They start with inspiration, and you’re there for sketching, for fabric development." She prefers in to work in-house at a design studio, where she is “able to build a relationship based on one brand.”
Image Credit: Tara Savarese
As our conversation was drawing to a close she offered some advice to current AUP students. She thinks that it is extremely important to "remember it's a business and it's not just all about the pretty clothes. Remember that the bottom line is that they're out to make money."
Her last piece of advice? “Have friends outside of fashion, because it will eat away at your soul if that’s all you focus on all the time.”
