Name: Erika Ann Marie Randolph

Where do you live? Hampton, Virginia.

Area of study: BFA Fashion Design

Day job / occupation: Just recently employed Forever 21 sales Associate

What qualities do you most value in others?

Honesty, nice, bubbly and a good sense of humor. I love laughing and smiling.

Who are three of your favorite designers?

My favorite designers are Balenciaga, Michael Kors, Emilio Pucci and tons more! I also have a blog of my own and it even has the items I have designed and created up there for sale, too!

List a guilty pleasure:

Eating pizza, cookies, hot wings and watching Lifetime all day. Or grabbing all of my old vogue magazines and sketching from them.

What is your present state of mind?

I’m in a good state of mind right now. I know where I want to go with my career but I’m still learning how to get there

What is your dream job?

RTW fashion designer for womens wear.

What is the most important thing that people should know about you?

I’m a really happy person. I always smile and laugh. I love dancing. I’ve studied many styles of dancing -African, Middle Eastern, hip-hop, jazz, tap, ballet and lyrical. Sewing is most definitely something that I love to do. My dream would be to become a RTW designer, dancer and to meet Stevie Wonder, my favorite person ever! Wouldn’t that be cool?

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Music has a certain way of setting the tone – for a film, a night out, a road trip – and, of course, a fashion show. Each season, we walk away from fashion week, our heads filled with images of sartorial greatness and all of the songs that accompanied said greatness down the runway. We are lucky enough to have an amazing DJ, Scott Ewalt, to create our show playlist each season. He has a talent for perfectly matching the mood of a collection to music – bringing together the visual and auditory senses to marvelous effect.

So here it is – the playlist from the Academy of Art University Fall ’12 Show!

1. Gang of Four – To Hell With Poverty

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The Somber Cool Kids

Marc Jacobs is one of the most influential and admired designers of today, point blank. Regardless of whether you find his work mildly creative or attractive, he has successively dominated the fashion world -season, after season.

In his Marc by Marc Jacobs Fall/Winter 2012 Collection, Jacobs manages to takes us on a wayward ride back to school, a school full of rebellion and peculiarity. I kind of like to call this collection, “Back to Basics,” added with a slight bit of edge that was somewhat reminiscent of Catholic school kids, gone grunge.

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The Board.

The marketing minds over at Oscar de la Renta, leaders in the growing space where technology and fashion collide, are giving fashion lovers a chance to get even closer to the brand. The Board, as it is called, is a virtual inspiration board – just like the mood boards created for each collection, only digital. They are inviting the masses to participate in the design process, by uploading images to The Board that are meant to inspire the label’s Resort ’12 collection. This latest social media initiative was introduced Tuesday, at the designer’s Fall ’12 Fashion Show. As the Resort collection progresses, they will ask for more specific submissions, such as ideas for color palettes or silhouettes. It will remain open for the next three months, until the collection is revealed.

Some of the best submissions will be shared via the brand’s other social media channels, which include Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram. Though the designer is not obligated to consider any of the images, it will be interesting to see what comes of the social media experiment. CEO of Oscar de la Renta, Alex Bolen, cautiously explained that the The Board is not an exercise in democracy – “There’s one decider, and that’s Oscar.” What do you think of The Board? Tell us in the comments below!

VPL by Victoria Bartlett – the underwear-inpsired label named after a major fashion faux-pas (Visible Panty Lines) – has turned out another stellar collection. There were jersey dresses that draped beautifully across the body, and silky separates that clung to all the right places. The collection also featured some amazing knitwear – and several of the pieces were worked on by one of our amazing students, Heather McDonald. She interned with the company over winter break, and worked on the Fall ’12 collection, which was presented last Saturday during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Take a look at the gorgeous futuristic knits below!

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The Academy of Art University Fall ’12 Fashion Show was featured in Women’s Wear Daily!! Monday’s issue included a write up of the collections, and two gorgeous photos – one from Xiang Zhang’s collection, and one from Jeanette Au’s. Here are few highlights from the review!

China’s Wu Di started out on a high note with her geometric-inspired collection that featured angular silhouettes in cashmere knits and wool.

Another standout was Xiang Zhang, who opted for different looks all show over white shirting: on one great look, it peeked out from a taupe silk mohair dress layered under a collarless silk cashmere and wool coat.

The collection from Jeanette Au, a Michigan native, was the most inventive. Inspired by the Ballet Russes and Leon Bakst paintings, she delivered a colorful, textural display of mohair and metallic knits with intricate 3-D patterns.

For more from Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, click here.

Illustration by Gladys Perint Palmer. From Gaultier Spring/Summer ’12 Haute Couture.

Just wanted to remind you all that there are two very important events happening tomorrow!

First, Unpicking Fashion, a presentation by School of Fashion Executive Director Gladys Perint Palmer on the fashion industry past, present, and future, inspired by her recent travels to London, Paris, Instanbul, and parts of Turkey. She will also have a conversation with Academy of Art University President Dr. Elisa Stephens and School of Fashion Director Simon Ungless on the evolution of the University and specifically the School of Fashion.

WHAT: School of Fashion presentation – Unpicking Fashion

WHEN: TOMORROW, Thursday – February 16th at 9:30 AM

WHERE: Morgan Auditorium, 491 Post Street

And second, the student fashion club, Beyond the Front Row, is having their first general meeting! Beyond the Front Row (BtFR) is for students at the Academy of Art University who are either enrolled in the School of Fashion, or who simply have an interest in fashion and want to gain insight into and connect with the industry. It is a social club with a strong emphasis on peer networking and volunteerism at charitable and fashion-related events.

WHAT: Beyond the Front Row First General Meeting of the Spring Semester

WHEN: TOMORROW, Thursday – February 16th, 6:30 PM

WHERE: 625 Polk Street, Room 201

House of 950. L-R: Alice Spies, Lauren Haut, Eric Holbreich, and Julien Charrier.

On Saturday, February 11th the House of 950 gave an innovative presentation at the Cue Art Foundation gallery in New York during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. The House of 950 consists of a group of artists, three of which are designers: Eric Holbreich, Alice Spies and Lauren Haut, who attended Academy of Art University, and Julien Charrier. This wasn’t your typical runway show – instead, you were invited into the House of 950 as a guest.

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*Please note, all School of Fashion Students must have completed 90 units before starting an internship.

In today’s Alumni Update, we spoke with Ksenia Avdulova, a 2010 M.F.A. Fashion Merchandising alumna who now works in Social Media at Gilt Groupe. She centered her senior thesis on the e-commerce retailer, worked her way up, and eventually landed her dream job! She was also one of the panelists at the online student workshop in New York. Read on for Ksenia’s insights into the growing role of social media in fashion – and for some awesome NYC recommendations!

You recently started working as the Community Manager at Gilt Groupe. What does your job entail?

Being a social media manager has many different aspects to it, but if I had to break it down to three main fields that I work on daily, they would be:

1. Ensuring that Gilt Groupe’s vision and voice is consistently represented across the social media channels, mainly by creating content for Facebook and Twitter. The company has several businesses; all of them have social media presence, and I am responsible for managing and growing the largest one – the Women’s Wear Business.

2. Listening, analyzing, and implementing. I can’t stress how valuable social media is in terms of listening to customers (present and potential). It’s not just about knowing what interactions are taking place on our Facebook and Twitter pages, but much more so about using that information to cater to our followers and provide them with content that they want to engage with. A big part of that is working closely with the Social Customer Support team, which does an absolutely amazing job of answering customers’ questions and resolving their issues via our Facebook and Twitter pages.

3. Project managing social partnerships with external partners. Besides being very social, interactive, and fun, the Community Manager job involves a good amount of project management. For example, currently we’re running a Sweepstakes in partnership with Milly. It was my job to act as a liaison between various teams within Gilt, Milly, and the app developer to ensure a smooth launch and running of the campaign.

Being a community manager is a very exciting and fast-paced role, especially at a company that is known to be a trend-setter in its field. There’s never a dull moment: there’s always a new online conversation to monitor, a new trend to watch, and a new idea for a Facebook post. The most rewarding part about the job is the communication that happens with followers of the company, as well as being a part Gilt’s creative, driven and dynamic team.

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