Short Term TV Career Helps Assure Design Alum's Long Term Success
UC alumna Laura Dawson recently appeared on the Bravo Channel's reality series, The Fashion Show. And that experience on the small screen is likely to bring some big payoffs to her transatlantic design career.
Laura Dawson is a young alumna of the University of Cincinnati's fashion design program, but she likely enjoys name and face recognition far beyond most fashion designers her age.
That's because Dawson recently appeared on the Bravo Channel's reality series, The Fashion Show. And though her time on the series was but a short two episodes in length, the successful transatlantic entrepreneur will likely add to her ongoing success thanks to the TV appearance.
"In some ways, you win no matter what because of the exposure to an audience that is intensely interested in fashion. I decided to go on the show after speaking with another entrepreneur. She continued to receive interest in her designs years after her appearance on a similar show," explained Dawson, adding, "I have sales reps marketing my work on the East and West coasts, but the show helps me to connect with a Midwestern audience in a broad way."
Her appearance on The Fashion Show was just one of many savvy business moves by the 2002 graduate from UC's internationally ranked School of Design, within the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP).
Currently living and designing from a new home base in London after having worked in New York City for 10 years, Dawson's designs are popular with musicians and other fashion-forward clients on both sides of the Atlantic. Musicians who have worn her designs include Jake Shears of the musical group Scissor Sisters; members of the group, Brazilian Girls; and French singer Yelle.
Earlier in her career, Dawson helped to customize red-carpet designs worn by performers like Cate Blanchett, Susan Sarandon and Barbara Streisand.
Dawson credits UC and its cooperative education program for contributing to her success. Co-op, as it is called, is the practice wherein UC design students alternate quarters in the classroom with quarters of professionally paid work, allowing students to graduate with about 18 months of paid experience. UC is the global birthplace of co-op, having invented the practice in 1906, and the university's co-op program is ranked in the nation's Top Ten by U.S. News & World Report.
Said Dawson, "Co-op allowed me to leap ahead in experience. It (co-op) is why DAAP is one of the best schools for design in the country. I spent every co-op quarter I had working in New York until the final one when I opted to take a travel quarter to Europe."
She added, "Spending time in so many various work settings gave me a feel for what I did and did not want to get into after college. Also, the co-op program and its accelerated pace allowed me to both be successful and make mistakes in a setting where I had a new opportunity to start again every few months."
After graduation, Dawson moved to New York and soon began her own business. She did so, she explained, by having a solid business plan. And, she stated, "I always wore what I made and still do."
She gives the same advice to young designers who similarly want to start entrepreneurial businesses: "Have a solid business plan and figure out order fulfillment, how you'll handle orders. Plan ten years out. And wear your own designs 24-7."
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