Fashion MBA Application Why Is an MBA

Fashion MBA Application

Why is an MBA a critical next step toward your short- and long-term career goals? Why is LIM College the best MBA program for you? LIM College seeks candidates of various backgrounds who can bring new perspectives to our community. How will your unique personal history, values, and/or life experience contribute to the culture at LIM College?

For the past two years, I have worked in retail -- at first doing visual merchandising with my current employer, but then working up to actually selling women's clothing, establishing a clientele of women whom I personally style and advise about the latest trends. The personal relationship between salesperson and client is something that comes naturally to me, and in contemplating my own long-term career goals I realize that I enjoy everything about my current job -- except the fact that I am not doing these things in my own women's boutique.

To establish myself as an entrepreneur in this way requires an MBA -- but to do so in my chosen field absolutely requires an MBA from LIM College. In researching different MBA programs that could help me combine my own engagement with both fashion and entrepreneurship, it became clear that LIM College's program was unique in sharing my own focus.

When I think about models for my own career, I think of names like Jeffrey Kalinsky. Kalinsky's groundbreaking boutiques in Manhattan and Atlanta are only a little more than a decade old, but represent an example of the same kind of business I hope one day to run: one that cares more about close personal attention to establish client loyalty and goodwill than about the fast sale. In researching Kalinsky's career, I was relieved to discover that he had served apprenticeship with larger retailers like Barney's and Nordstrom. But Kalinsky had an advantage that I did not have: he is the third generation in his family to own and operate retail businesses. I lack this kind of advantage, but I am humble enough to realize that an MBA education at LIM College would assist in the aspects of opening a boutique that I do not have personal experience with. But I know from personal experience that I have all of those intangibles which would make me a success in doing so.

2. LIM College defines leadership as "inspiring others to strive and enabling them to accomplish great things." We believe great things and great leadership can be accomplished in pursuit of business and societal goals. Describe a time when you exercised such leadership. Discuss the challenges you faced and the results you achieved. What characteristics helped you to be effective and what areas do you feel you need to develop in order to be a better leader?

If leadership is about offering inspiration to others and helping them achieve their own goals, then I would. Although I myself would describe it more modestly -- yes, I advise my clients, but one reason I have been so successful in establishing a client base is that I view my role as enabling my clients to better be themselves, rather than forcing this season's latest look on someone when it would be inappropriate. I can recall one specific case with a client whom I will call "Angela." Angela works as an executive in the financial industry, but she also happens to be overweight. I encountered her early on when I was working in retail, and I met her under less-than-auspicious circumstances: she had just emerged from a fitting room and was clearly in a state of anger. Because I saw that she was in no state to be making calm decisions about her own purchase, my first instinct was to cheer her up, make her feel better about herself, and offer tactful advice as to how she could better present herself.

Angela became my first repeat customer because, in her words, she knew "I would never lead her astray." The great irony is that, over the course of styling Angela, she has in fact regained her confidence and begun losing weight. She began feeling better about herself and the way she looked before she ever lost a pound, and told me that, in part, it was due to the empathetic manner in which I approached her visits to the store. I do not want to exaggerate the importance of this story, but when I think of the way in which leadership can be expressed within the context of fashion retail, I think of the way in which I helped Angela feel better, look better, and ultimately become healthier.

3. Discuss the most difficult constructive criticism or feedback you have received. How did you address it? What have you learned from it?

If criticism is honestly constructive, then I do not find it difficult to take. I believe that opportunities for self-improvement are constant and neverending, and make it a priority to constantly be expanding my own knowledge. Within fashion retail, I certainly had a long learning curve in the beginning -- I can recall during the first week on the job when I did not know the meaning of the term "empire waistline" and was embarrassed by a senior colleague. I went out and pored through fashion and costume books at my public library in order to improve my fashion-specific vocabulary so that this would not happen again.

But in terms of the most difficult constructive criticism that I have ever faced, I think it too came from a supervisor in retail. I had been working with a client for almost forty-five minutes, offering my advice on different pantsuits to help her find one that felt "right" for an upcoming business meeting. She looked good in a number of different options, but ultimately I watched her wavering, unable to be satisfied with any of her choices, so I leveled with her: "I'll be honest with you about how it looks -- and it looks right. But if it doesn't feel right, you shouldn't buy it." In other words, at the moment when a salesperson should be "closing" the sale, I opted to tell her what I thought she needed to hear (despite the loss of time spent in assisting her).