Review: Building a Creative Career with Sid and Ann Mashburn at SCADshow

Last Thursday night, SCAD invited Sid and Ann Mashburn to speak at SCADshow about their journey of building a creative career. They also gave some very helpful advice to all the aspiring creatives in the crowd on how to apply some of the steps that they took, into the audience’s own creative career journeys.

Sid and Ann Mashburn are a happily married couple who both own Mashburn, L.L.C., which is made up of men’s and women’s shops featuring their own designed-and-produced clothing, as well as their favorite pieces. They have shops in five different locations across the United States — Atlanta, Houston, Washington D.C., Dallas and Los Angeles — where their first shop was opened back in 2007 in Westside, Atlanta. They also have e-commerce websites that allow customers around the world to order from their shops.

The pair gave the crowd insight into their individual pasts, using a well-curated and interesting slideshow, showing how they got to where they are today.

They described all of the hardships that they went through when just starting off working in the fashion industry. Ann worked as an editor for Glamour and Vogue. She mentioned crying after work on some days as her boss at Vogue (seen in the image below) was quite strict, but she’d always go right back to the office the next day knowing that this was just something she had to get through since it would have only made her stronger in the end.

Sid worked for top firms like, J.Crew, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Lands’ End and gave stories about how he’d take a lot of risks and every opportunity he could get, which played a big part in his success today.

Their individual stories on becoming successful creatives were quite inspirational and motivational to many people in the audience, as a few stood up and told them that they could’ve related to certain situations that the pair went through, and then proceeded to ask for advice.

A key piece of advice that was given was that communication is a major key to success. When they got to Atlanta and opened up their first shop, they didn’t know too many people. It was only after they began chatting with their customers and kept in contact with people that they’d meet that they were able to create more opportunities for their company. At the beginning of the event, Sid made the audience stand and introduce themselves to the person next to them so they could get an idea of what it was like for the couple when just starting off and how the crowd should be when successfully communicating.

Another piece of advice given was to always take risks and opportunities. If you’re looking for a job or internship at a particular company, don’t be afraid to send that company an email or call them, as you never know what could happen.

Lastly, they said to always give your all in everything you do.

To learn more about MASHBURN, visit the Sid Mashburn and Ann Mashburn websites.