Discus Award Winner
Winners Gallery
Jessica Whitaker
12th Grade, WA
ATTRIBUTES
Work
In December 2010 I was blessed with the opportunity to intern for an online clothing boutique, Moodswings Inc. Having an already established relationship with the owner, Patty, she took me under her wing my sophomore year. Through my internship I was educated about the business side of the fashion industry. I learned so much! Including buying product from different companies, providing customer service, utilizing industry terms, warehouse packing and shipping, and attending various trade and trend shows in the city of Seattle, Washington. By the time my junior year of high school arrived, I was offered a job at Moodswings. I took the job and was promoted to data specialist within the first few months of being in a paid position.
Technology
From 2011-2012 I kept an online personal style blog. Through this blog I was able to work with over 20 clothing companies. Companies would send garments (some being as small as $10 accessories to $100 jackets) that I would wear on my blog in “official” outfit posts. Some vendors would also use my blog to host giveaways that promoted their product and engaged readers. A few of the clothing vendors I worked with included established companies such as Rocketdog Shoes and Blowfish Shoes, as well as major web stores such as Lulus.com and GoJane.com. In December 2011, my blog was featured on the front page of Wordpress.com for my post “The Right to Bare Arms.” Blogging was a great opportunity to build relationships with companies and to become more experienced in the area of online marketing.
Community Service
In the Fashion Design & Marketing class I took my junior year, we held a fundraiser fashion show to raise money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The event was held at Hotel Monaco in Seattle, whose ballroom they allowed us to use. We procured garments from various vendors, including Betsy Johnson, Group USA, and Charlotte Russe. We had thirty students from our school volunteer as models. We had a makeup artist do the makeup for the event and Nordstrom donated cosmetics for us to use for the show. I was the head of all marketing and promotion, which included contacting local newspapers and businesses, putting up advertisements on online community calendars, selling tickets, and putting up flyers. We had a fantastic turnout and, most importantly, raised a lot of money.
