2016 SMU Fashion Week, April 20-22

DALLAS (SMU) – SMU arts and business students will present the fifth annual SMU Fashion Week, April 20-22. The event will feature lectures by prominent fashion journalists/authors Hillary Kerr and Kate Betts along with the annual spring fashion show, which this year will include clothing and accessories from luxury retailer Stanley Korshak and upscale consignment store Luxury Garage Sale.

Begun in 2012 and produced primarily by students interested in careers within the trillion-dollar international fashion industry, SMU Fashion Week has grown along with the nearly five-year-old fashion media program, part of the Division of Journalism at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts.

Fashion Week events, all of which are free and open to the public, are as follows:

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20:  A talk with Hillary Kerr, co-founder of WhoWhatWear

Kerr, co-author of the new book The Career Code: Must-Know Rules for a Strategic, Stylish, and Self-Made Career, will discuss ways college graduates can find careers in the fashion industry. Kerr and Katherine Power are the co-founders of Clique Media, which includes WhoWhatWear.com (celebrity style and runway trends), MyDomaine.com (home décor) and Byrdie.com (makeup and beauty). Prior to the launch of WhoWhatWear.com, Kerr was a Los Angeles-based writer for publications such as ELLE, Teen Vogue and Nylon; Power was the West Coast editor for ELLE and ELLEgirl. Kerr and Power are also the co-authors of two other books: Who What Wear: Celebrity and Runway Style For Real Life (Abrams, September 2009) and What To Wear, Where (Abrams, March 2011).

Details: 11:00 a.m. in room B600 in the basement of the Owen Arts Center, 6101 Bishop Blvd. on the SMU campus (Dallas 75205)

THURSDAY, APRIL 21: Fashion Week keynote address by Kate Betts, former editor of Harper’s Bazaar

Betts will talk about her career path as well as her recent book, My Paris Dream, a memoir about coming of age as a fashion journalist in Paris in the 1980s. She is an award-winning magazine editor and author who has held top positions at two of the world’s most successful fashion magazines, Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Betts was named editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar in June 1999. She moved to Bazaar from Vogue, where she was the fashion news director from 1991 to 1999. Betts began her career as a reporter for and later the associate bureau chief of the Paris office of Fairchild Publications. Fluent in French and Spanish, Betts was recently named one of the top 10 fashion editors by Forbes magazine. She was the 2011 recipient of the Mary Lou Luther Award for excellence in fashion journalism. She has written for over 20 publications including The New York Times, Glamour, NewYork, Elle and Travel+Leisure.

Details: Keynote address at 7 p.m. in room 241 of the Umphrey Lee Center, 3300 Dyer St. on the SMU campus. Reception with Kate Betts precedes the lecture at 6:30 p.m. in the Division of Journalism complex near room 280 in the Umphrey Lee Center.

FRIDAY, APRIL 22: Spring Fashion Show

The Retail Club at Cox School of Business will present their annual spring fashion show. This year’s show will feature looks from Stanley Korshak and Luxury Garage Sale.

Details: 2 p.m. outdoors near the steps of Dallas Hall, 3225 University Blvd. on the SMU campus. The show will be on the lawn of the main quad outside Dallas Hall.

Public parking is available at the Binkley Parking Garage at the corner of Binkley Avenue and Airline Road on the SMU campus. For parking details, please visit: https://www.smu.edu/AboutSMU/Maps/Parking.

For more information, contact Chelsea Bell, director of the fashion media program in the Meadows School Division of Journalism, at 214-768-4913 or crbell@smu.edu.

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