012 - Dean Steven Frumkin of the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology at the Fashion Institute of Technology - “Giving You The Business”

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Pt 1 FIT Dean on success in the fashion industry…

Dean Steven Frumkin of the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology at the Fashion Institute of Technology joins the hosts for a lively discussion. Marc (Monkey Radio) has trouble with a name despite FIT celebrating its 70^th anniversary. Rob (Manufacture New York) started a discussion of omni channels, technology that connects people with brands, the importance of marketing, research, knowing what customer is doing and the experiential part of going out to find something that needs to be connected. Examples of retailers doing well in connecting with consumers (including one whose clothing Pavan (OS Fashion) is wearing in the studio). Age categories vs. fit (3D body scanning), using technology to solve an issue, creating an environment to dominate an industry, using a technology’s audience to reach customers. How Dean Frumkin (Fashion Institute of Technology) magically appeared, and how the desire to make things led to a career in textile design, fabrication, product development led to needing new technologies into fabric making. The Dean’s history from working as an adjunct at FIT to developing protective clothing for the military, finding the right opportunity to come back to NYC, knowing the business, and how the Vietnam War inspired him to want to save the world and be of value to a company as of day one. Why it is important that people will always make clothing. Which comes first, fashion or business/tech? The role of passion, entrepreneurism, and online education and why online classes must be in real time. The global nature of education and Frumkin’s experience in Asia and protective clothing for military and first responders. Learning about the world and teaching people how to run small businesses, watching change take place in a different part of the world, and representing the US after 9/11. The impact of Uzbekistanian cotton and when it is important to stick one’s fingers in a hot water tank. What it is like to watch the emergence of different fashion industries, see 20,000 workers making the same grey jacket, witness the Soviet Union’s Fashion Week and work with 268 Peace Corps students. Wall Street vs. clubs and rock-climbers vs. poser-runners. Developing protective clothing for nuclear, biological and chemical exposure, creating next generation science/technologies, understanding the military consumer and why soldiers wouldn’t wear their protective clothing, and why the size of the molecules mattered.