It's Tuesday May 4th and if you are a regular here you will notice that the site has not transitioned to a member only site as proclaimed last month. This announcement is a few days late because I've been mulling the change over and have decided to postpone it at least until June 1st, maybe July.

"Why?" you ask? There are a lot of reasons -- none of which are technical for a change!

I won't get into all the itty bitty ones but will tell you the main one: My stuff has still not arrived at my new home across the ocean. This is significant because it means I have no resource materials other than the internet. I prefer my books. It also means I don't have any of my art supplies and am completely out of the frame of mind to be creative. It was all supposed to come at the beginning of April but now will not be here until mid-May. I haven't written all the articles I planned and I have generally been unmotivated without any of my normal catalysts. I'm a very tactile person, I need to feel the paper between my palms and be covered in eraser bits wearing my destroyed-by-paint American Eagle baggy jeans in order to create a written piece.

This financial change has to come into place in order for this site to be all it can be. But I don't feel right charging for it when it is NOT all it can be. Catch-22. So my final decision is to let it go at least another month, probably two, until I have my stuff, am writing, and am back to actively recruiting new writers.

Enjoy the site, and spread the word!

Sincerely, 
- AJ :)

INSPIRED BY PROJECT RUNWAY® CONTEST CHALLENGES ASPIRING DESIGNERS!

Aspiring designers and sewers are invited to compete in a fashion design competition that's inspired by Project Runway®. Creative fashionistas are challenged to design a look that others will want to make and proudly wear! The winner will receive worldwide distribution of their design and a trip to NYC, fashion capital of the world! Entries will be judged by Barbara Schneeweiss, Executive Producer of Project Runway® and representatives from Simplicity® Patterns, the creator and sponsor of this exciting competition, as well as sewing industry experts.

An exclusive licensing agreement between Weinstein Company, owner of Project Runway® and Simplicity Patterns enables Simplicity® to market apparel sewing patterns "Inspired by Project Runway". Simplicity® is the world’s leading manufacturer of fashion sewing patterns. Their Inspired by Project Runway patterns have garnered worldwide attention and become instant collectibles as each season passes. Now, one lucky aspiring designer from the United States has a chance to turn "pro", by having their winning design added to the Inspired by Project Runway® pattern collection worldwide!

Fashionistas, style-mavens, aspiring designers and home sewers are invited to enter and become part of the world of fashion design! This is a rare opportunity to compete in a fashion design contest where the prize enables the winner’s name to be forever attached to the Simplicity® and Inspired by Project Runway brands. "We are looking forward to reviewing the entries and introducing a fresh, new design to our Inspired by Project Runway pattern collection and the world of fashion" says Bonnie Simmons, Design Director at Simplicity®.

The Grand Prize Winner will receive a trip to New York City to visit Simplicity’s offices for meetings with the Design and Production staff. The winning design will be produced and distributed worldwide as an Inspired by Project Runway® pattern in the Simplicity Pattern Collection. The Grand Prize Winner will be photographed and featured on Simplicity.com and the winning design will be photographed for the Simplicity Catalog.

Entries must be postmarked no later than midnight, May 12th.

http://www.simplicity.com/t-pattern design-contest.aspx

FOR INFORMATION AND IMAGES, CONTACT:

Carin Blankoff
212-372-0517
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Kristen Nweeia
212-372-0679
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In two weeks Fashion Students Online will become a members only website. Memberships will cost €10 per YEAR (approx. $13.50USD) and they can be earned for free also by writing an article for us. The membership fee that is being implemented will help us build the site and pay writers. There are many other sewing, costuming and fashion sites which charge money for their articles. They took these business models because it allowed them to provide quality content and a good service to those readers who genuinely appreciate their site. It is our goal to be accessible and so we are determined to ask only for this small token payment rather than the much higher $100/yr that some sites request.

All current regular members will receive their first year membership for free. If you are currently a registered member of FSO you do not need to sign up again, nor pay any membership fees until May 2011. However starting May 1, 2010 all new members will be required to pay the €10 fee for their one year membership. In the beginning this fee will allow us to pay for our hosting, buy additional software, and pay our authors however as the membership base grows this fee will also allow us to provide ad-free blogs and portfolio hosting for every member.

If you are not a registered member right now, make sure you register before May 1st so that you can also benefit from the one year free membership. If you would like to learn more please read the announcement that was mailed out to the FSO mailing list 2 weeks ago:

FSO to become a paid-member site

If anyone here knits, About.com is looking for a knitting pattern writer. Go to About.com, go to the bottom, click "write for about" select to be a contributing writer, then look for "Garment Patterns". It says garment patterns but it's for their knitting channel.

Below is information I copied from their site. Please be aware they may change their policies after I post this and it is your responsibility to read the literature, terms and conditions they have.

How are Contributing Writers paid?

About.com will offer Contributing Writers in their first two years a guaranteed minimum monthly payment of $500. After two years, the guaranteed minimum monthly payment will be $250. About.com also pays Contributing Writers by measuring pageview growth (month-over-month for Contributing Writers in their first year, and year-over-year every year after) with payment incentives for pageview growth. There is no cap on what you can earn—the guaranteed minimums are offered as a safety net.

Are there any minimum publishing requirements?

Contributing Writers commit to publishing at least 12 pieces of content every month. These articles will be a mix of short- and long-form content (our flexible tools facilitate publishing everything from long-form articles to glossary pages). After more than 13 years working with About.com Guides, we know that this baseline will help new Contributing Writers grow their subtopics (and their earnings) more quickly by establishing a strong foundation of content that will garner a lot of repeat visits.

Here at Fashion Students Online we are forging ahead with plans to publish a large amount of content every month: at least 8 feature length, fully researched articles per month. We want to know what you want to learn about!

We know you like everything we publish but specifically we've seen that our So You Think You Can't Draw series is a hit, as are all of Sidney Eileen's corset-making and care articles. We'd like to know if there are other topics you'd like to see covered?

Please reply to this posting by commenting or email us through our contact form with your suggestions.

p.s. pass it on...the more feedback we get the better this site can become!

The site has been rather quiet lately except for the student blogs which are just rocking. If you haven't been around to read them, make sure you do! Daniel has been posting a huge amount of invaluable information about textiles, Elizabeth is writing about her internship, Lauren has submitted some more about fashion shows and merchandising, and my blog is unfortunately done so no more posts from me!

I have returned to my home area of west coast Canada from Europe. This move was absolutely unexpected and my life was turned upside down for the last 6 weeks. Thus, I have not been able to write all the great articles I normally write, nor keep the site as up to date as usual. BUT I'm settled and back to the site!

Starting this week once again there will be a minimum of 2 full feature-length articles written by me, the site blog will get up and going again,  I will pick up the drawing series again and I will again begin actively recruiting writers.

Originally posted on Daniel's student blog:

Apparel design students at UW-Stout are required to take one sociology class. I find the class interesting, although I am not sure if as a designer I will ever use what I learn in the class. My final project is to use the concepts from the semester to construct a sociological argument about a problem at UW-Stout. In order to make this class more relevant to my major, I decided to find a topic that relates to apparel design. I have noticed that as a man I am part of a very small minority in my program, so my paper will be about gender disparities in the apparel/fashion field.

The paper is due on April 29, but we were given the assignment last week so that we will have ample time to collect data. I found graduation numbers for 1988 through 2009 (data were not available for 1989, 1991, 1992, and 1999). In that time UW-Stout awarded 351 bachelor’s degrees to apparel design students. Only 13 of those degree recipients were men.

Are these data typical of fashion design programs at other schools? I would like to hear from students at other schools about the make-up of their design programs. What percentage of the students are men? I am interested in both quantitative and qualitative data. Men, how do you feel about being a student in a predominantly female field? Do you experience any problems because of your gender? What are they, and how do you overcome them? Women, what do you think about men in fashion design?

Any input about this matter will be greatly appreciated. Please post your comments to this blog or email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Thank you.

The identity of all respondents will remain confidential.

Kathleen Fasanella posted an extremely helpful entry a couple days ago on Fashion-Incubator. An excerpt:

As I did last year, I’ve created a spreadsheet listing dates, locations and websites (xls) of each show. It would seem we’ve lost and gained a few shows from last February. Gone: ASAP, Eco Show, Magia at Magic. New shows: FN Platform (shoes) and Workroom (?). As ever, the WWIN show is a must stop for DE women’s apparel lines. They also have a kidswear show, the competing Magic kids show is nothing to write home about. It’s harder to get to these last two shows (long story) but it’s worth the effort. All of the show links are in the spreadsheet.

Included in the post are links to a spreadsheet she's made with a calendar of events as well as links to FORTY-FOUR (44!) posts on her website about trade shows.

Visit the Fashion-Incubator blog to read the entry in full, get the spreadsheet, and find all those awesome other posts!

By popular demand (the demand coming after I repeated what Stefanie said about me needing to teach this class to a few people, and them all saying YES YES YES PLEASE): I’m teaching another online class starting after the 15th of this month on marketing, branding and communicating your message effectively.

We’re going to do this a little differently than the current set of classes, though. I want to be sure that the class members have something to teach each other, too, whether it’s because they are from a different discipline, or because they sell their products in venues the majority of students don’t, or… (etc).

Get more information on the Knitgrrl blog.