Fashion school stores opened for the year in September.
Students at George Brown Polytechnic can shop second-hand clothing, on campus.
Uptown and Downtown stores are a semester-long project run by students in the Fashion Management program.
Located on the fourth floor of the C building in front of the Fashion Atrium, the project is split between two spaces. Downtown, which operates as the clothing store, and Uptown, which is designed as a lounge.
“We’re tasked with putting ourselves in a real way of how to start a clothing store and how to get it to fully function,” said Ankita Prakash, one of the store managers.
Students in the program are divided into teams that take on different parts of the business, including buying, visual merchandising, promotions and finances.
After spending their first two semesters learning the foundations of the program, students put those lessons into practice by running the store.
The Downtown store currently has a fall and winter collection of curated second-hand pieces. The store is also looking to feature pieces from student designers and alumni who want to sell their work.
The clothing is sourced by student buyers, who visit thrift and second-hand stores to find pieces that fit the store’s theme
Items are inspected for quality, cleaned, and prepared before being placed on the sales floor.
The collection is expected to change throughout the semester as items sell.
Buyers will continue sourcing pieces, while the visual merchandising team sets the look and feel of the store.
Uptown offers a different experience, with a seating area and photo backdrop; there is a café to enjoy a few refreshments, and students can get a polaroid picture for $5.
Fashion Design student Emily Martino said they first heard about the two stores through Instagram and are back to shop again this semester.
“We wanted to come back and see what they had this year,” Martino said.
Martino also mentioned the store has unique handbags for good prices. Better than the thrift stores.
The store is open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is closed on Wednesdays and weekends.
It will operate until the first week of December, with another group of Fashion Management students potentially running the project during the Winter Semester.
For the students managing the store, the experience is about more than making sales. It is an opportunity to understand the work that goes into running a retail business, from what the customers see on the sales floor to the decisions happening behind the scenes.
