by Lawren Gabrielle McCord
Creativity, passion, desire and talent drive each of us to create. Once we have created something how do we market and sell it? SCAD recently introduced the fashion marketing and management (FASM) program that teaches students to do just that. In the FASM program students learn how to create business plans and marketing campaigns to sell their products. Students also learn to step into retail buyers’ shoes and the needs of large companies, such as Wal-Mart and Macy’s.
Let’s take a look into the high-heeled shoes of Diamond Downs, a fifth-year student in the fashion marketing and management program. Downs has successfully developed a business plan and launched her own jewelry line, Cheap-Wealth. Cheap-Wealth has been seen on celebrities such as Ann Roth, Toni Braxton and Kim Porter. Downs created those pieces for a class project.
Lawren Gabrielle McCord: Tell me about your beginnings in Atlanta.
Diamond Downs: I moved to Atlanta in the seventh grade from D.C. In high school I took journalism classes and also decided that I was a very creative individual. I needed to be hands on. With that I came to SCAD to get hands-on design industry experience. I came with the intentions of becoming a fashion designer. Designing jewelry is my passion. When I was eight years old I would make beaded bracelets and sell them to friends and family. I left that passion alone and I made the decision to go into the field of fashion journalism. I started to write with “The Connector.” I accepted a few internships, worked for Upscale Magazine and got real world experience. It was there that I tapped back into my first love of jewelry designing. I had a strong conversation with my mother and she said, “If you feel that the journalism industry is going online and publications are closing, I think that it is better for you to go back to your passion. But don’t just go back to work for another company, go to form your own company.”
LGM: What did you do next?
DD: I changed majors from fashion design to fashion marketing and management, to learn more about the business. I took the marketing and global sourcing courses [and] I started my company. I started with no loans and no grant money, just friends, family and faith.
LGM: What lessons are you able to take from the classroom into your professional life?
I have learned work ethics from being at SCAD. When you are assigned a project you are not going to just turn it in the next day. SCAD does not accept last minute work because when you sit in those critiques you are going to be critiqued! So with SCAD I can say that, with my business, I know how to reinvent myself. I have learned to test my target market to see if my plans work. If your plans do not work you have to reinvent yourself to create a new marketing plan. How do you market to Broadway or Hollywood? What about Texas and Seattle? Business is not just in Tokyo, Milan and Paris. Passion with no business will lead you nowhere. I am a risk-taker and I believe you have to be one to go into business for yourself. If you don’t believe in gambling, you are not going to make it.
LGM: Where did your inspiration for creating your jewelry line begin?
DD: My inspiration for my company [goes] back to vintage, but modernizing it in a trendy way. My advice is that you first have to create a story. You can get an internship, seek investors or spend hours in Barnes and Noble, but if you do not have a story the public is not going to buy [your product]. With me, my story is the downshift in the economy. I took my passion and said I want to somehow inspire people by doing something I truly love. I am going to make it affordable so that I am not in business to be this extremely wealthy woman. I live by this Marilyn Monroe quote everyday: “It is not about the money for me, I just want to be wonderful.”
LGM: Why did you decide to work for yourself and not gain experience in an already established environment?
DD: The whole reason for me going into business is to show other younger people that the new wave of the future is entrepreneurship. When you have your own business you can control your own success. You have to have patience and be open to constructive criticism; you have to be open and not take it as an attack. You have to sometimes not be married to your design and your inspiration. You have to let it go in an industry driven by customer service. The design industry is about the customer. If they don’t like the lace on the side and they are willing to pay $1000 for it, you are going to move the lace to the back.
LGM: What’s your design process like?
DD: I make samples and I edit. I decide that A, B and C will make my collection. My collection is “season-less” and timeless, like historical vintage. I will never change the name of my collections; I will just continue to add to them as the years go on. That is how they won’t become dated — they do not belong to spring, fall or winter they are whenever and whatever. I am inspired by people. I am inspired by their minds, personality and emotions.
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