About Sage Bailey
I have interests in the fashion and business industries and am active in a few organizations here at Virginia Commonwealth University, including the Creative Production Committee, River City Fashion, and Black Minds Matter. I recently modeled in and helped organize the CPC’s “Unparalleled” fashion show. Outside of school, I am a server and bartender at a local winery and upscale casual restaurant named Brambly Park in Richmond, Virginia. I’m extremely proud of how fast I moved up in this company; from starting as a runner, to moving up to server then bartender all within a year and even taking on a lot of leadership roles. I was made one of our lead servers quickly due to being one of the top sellers in the company. When I’m not doing schoolwork or working, you can find me hanging out with friends, watching fashion shows with my cats, or exercising around the city.
Devotion and dedication to fashion is what drew me to choose Virginia Commonwealth University for my undergraduate program. Upon entering my first fashion class during my first semester, I knew I was in the right place. However, I found myself limited and wanting more out of my degree, so I looked into other majors that I was interested in. I always had a love for research and writing, so I gravitated towards a Mass Communications major with a concentration in Journalism to seek a career in fashion journalism. Despite the fact of my interests falling in line with the path, I began to see my work as more of a chore than a passion. After searching and talking with many advisors, the Interdisciplinary Studies program was suggested to me. I learned how interdisciplinarity is a collaboration of multiple focus areas, called “disciplines,” to creatively solve complex problems.
I began to think back to my first semester at VCU and what attracted me to a Fashion Merchandising major, and remembered my professor giving us my favorite assignment I had completed in my college career about fashion forecasting, a career path that was unbeknownst to me before. From then on, I knew I wanted to become a fashion forecaster. This revitalized my love for the fashion industry, as well as gave me a sense of purpose when completing my schoolwork. I chose to combine the fashion merchandising and business disciplines to better understand the industry and tackle more subjects than the curriculum of the fashion program at VCU offered. Fashion Merchandising centers around the strategic marketing, advertising, and planning side of the fashion industry while challenging your mind to take a creative approach for the purpose of allowing the industry to flow smoothly. On the other hand, Business is observing accounting, entrepreneurship, marketing, and management of the industry to understand what it takes to keep a business afloat. Although one of my disciplines focuses on a specific sector, there is still a connection between the two. Marketing and management are the two main things that draw fashion merchandising and business together. The combination of these two disciplines helps me further understand how fashion businesses operate, and even support my soon-to-be career of being a fashion forecaster. My goal in my career is to be a person that can do any position well if needed, and having interdisciplinarity in my field of study is substantial for that.
Aside from my personal goals, my interdisciplinarity can be helpful to the public in a multitude of ways. No matter where someone is in this world, fashion is a part of their life. It is fascinating to see how it changes depending on your location, class, and background. Fashion is a huge part of every culture around the world, and my disciplines assist keeping that aspect of culture alive within the ever-growing business world. As the fashion industry has steadily grown from generation to generation, to know about fashion is necessary, but to know the ins and outs of the gritty things about the business will definitely help with any job in the industry.
