Apparel, Merchandising & Design
Interior & Environmental Design
Human Development & Family Resources
The Apparel, Merchandising, and Design sequence prepares students for employment in the product development, distribution and retail sectors of the textile and apparel business industries.
Students study the flow of apparel from production to sales with a focus on apparel design, merchandising, and product development and analysis, as well as business skills that employers find attractive.
Listed below are some facilities available to students in the Apparel, Merchandising and Design sequence.
Interior design and apparel design students and faculty have access to the Department of Industrial Technology’s primary computer drafting laboratory. TEC 110 Introduction to MicroCAD and TEC 211 Architectural Drafting, required courses, are taught in this laboratory. Interior design and apparel design students also have access to this laboratory and Turner 202 during open lab times to utilize AutoCAD. The interior design plotter is also housed in this laboratory and is used by both FCS and Technology students. This lab houses 28 Pentium 3.4 GHz, 2 GB of RAM computers.
A variety of apparel construction, production, design and merchandising courses are taught in this laboratory. The laboratory houses a variety of production and design equipment. New equipment purchased in 1999 include Bernina sewing machines, Singer lockstich industrial machines, Singer 5-thread home sergers, an industrial buttonholer, a blindhemmer, power shears, and industrial irons with stands. The following computer systems are also used in this laboratory: Microdynamics Pattern Grading System, Grading and Marking System, a digitizer and plotter, Microdesign and ApparelCAD. A storeroom off of the laboratory provides space for mannequins and other display items used by merchandising students.
Introductory and advanced textile courses for apparel merchandising and design and interior design students are taught in this newly renovated laboratory. Equipment available for research and instruction includes a spectrophotometer, crease recovery tester, snag tester, Instron materials strength tester, abrasion resistance tester, laboratory wringer, solar UV simulator, yarn twist tester, wrinkle tester, Pantone Textile Color selector, crockmeter, drying oven and tearing tester.
This storage laboratory houses the department’s historic costume collection, which is used for teaching apparel design, construction and history courses. Textile courses also rely on pieces of the costume collection for demonstration purposes, as do our general education courses (FCS 112 American Family and FCS 222 Cultural Diversity in Dress). There is a networked computer in this work area used by faculty and student workers to maintain the costume collection database.
Apparel merchandising and design students take courses from several departments in the College of Business.
Apparel Merchandising and Design Association (AMDA)
Students interested in any aspect of the fashion and apparel industry are encouraged to become members of this organization. There are many opportunities to network with faculty, alumni, professionals as well as fellow students. Throughout the year AMDA invites a variety of speakers from the apparel industry to campus and sponsors field trips and social events.
