Fashion Brunch

Target	Age	Duration	Objective
Active community members	all ages (25+)	3-4 hours	Networking event

Goals of the get-together

The goal of the activity is to create an integrating environment for women entrepreneurs in textiles and clothing. By getting together representatives from the fashion industry we wanted to offer the opportunity for them to speak about their career path, about the challenges and future plans.

One of the most important parts of this activity is the Career Mapping exercise for which the key factor is identifying innovators and supporting their new perspectives.

Additional conversation topics

A selection of questions to be addressed during the activity (taylored to this specific community)

• What do you consider that is innovative in the way you conduct your entrepreneurial activities?
• What are the current challenges that you meet day by day?
• How can we, as a community, contribute to a better integration of women in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in leading positions?
• What are the driving forces that determine you to continue developing your own brand?
• Who from the local fashion community inspires you to create specific garments?
• Describe your career path and how did you decide that the fashion industry is the direction in which you want to continue developing?
• What are the obstacles to achieving the shemakes goals in your country? (equal payment, more women in leading perspectives, value of specific work, different way of working, different organization structures?)
• What are the qualities that helped you in the development of your brand?

MATERIAL AND TOOLS

In order to prepare for this activity it's needed:

• post-its
• flip paper chart or big paper sheets for sticking the post-its
• a panel/stand on which participants can stick the post-its
• pens & markers

Make sure to think ahead how you are going to document and communicate the event, which is also something positive for the participants and to strengthen the network.

• photograph camera for documentation
• posts on social media about the event
• visual materials corresponding to the specifics of the project (logos, disclaimers)

TEAM ROLES

Depending on the number of participants invited at the activity, we suggest having 2-4 people on the event day. During the event participants should benefit from the attention of the organizational team: questions were asked directly to participants.

• 1 Facilitator/ Moderator
• 1 Observer: Someone taking notes, writing down the interesting quotes and also keeping track of the results of the exercise (where did people positioned themselves and other relevant highlights)
• Someone documenting the process: pictures & videos (don't forget to have the consent forms signed!!)
• Someone collecting the post-it notes and other relevant material in order to make post-analysis

PREPs

• Arrangements with the location where you could create a nice and welcoming environment
• Registration lists in order to keep track of the participants
• Consent forms printed for the number of participants
• Video and Photo arrangements
• Printing the necessary documentation
• Visuals development for the event (visual identity)
• Arrange drinks and snacks

DOs AND DON’T

DO extend the invitation to representatives of other industries, because networking events are a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to share their experience

DO support young women entrepreneurs during the event to share their know-how, offering them the opportunity to manifest their path

DO listen carefully what participants are saying - this information is valuable to use when creating new activities

DO address questions that would emphasize the difference between each participant in order to confirm the fact that innovation is different for everyone

DON’T try to create a preset understanding of what innovation is, so that participants won't feel uncomfortable when presenting their visions about what innovates their activity

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Prepare a set of questions in advance to be addressed to participants, during the event shape them as needed in order to meet the target audience
• Offer the opportunity for participants to engage with each other
• Encourage participants present at the event to exchange contacts

CONVERSATION GUIDELINES

When you are talking about a personal experience, take out names, try to focus on:

• No names, no personalization, no judgment, no rights or wrongs
• The concrete/abstract-in between the lines action that empowered you or hindered you
• The context (familiar/unfamiliar /new/comfortable)
• Your feeling - not the one of someone else, or why they might or not
• It’s happening during - training/learning, working, personal life, in public/social setting (personal/public are less important for shemakes)

AGENDA

1 - Welcome and registration(15 min)

2 - Shemakes Intro (10 min)

3 - Warm up Exercise (30 min)

4 - Career Mapping Activity (however, we advise to give participants to approach the table with post-its whenever they feel comfortable to do so, during the whole event)(40 min)

5 - Discussion and sharing experience (30 min)

6 - Conclusion and Reflections (20 min)

7 - Networking lunch (60 min)

1 - Welcome and registration

Discussing here the importance of activities like a Fashion Brunch because it offers the opportunity to create networking interactions and at the same time makes possible the implementation of Career Mapping.

Here participants are also offered the opportunity to sign the registration list for staying in future contact for future events.

At this moment, we take advantage of the fact that people are still arriving and we make introductions, meet new people, and greetings.

2 - Shemakes intro

Shemakes introduction & goal is to empower future female innovators of the sustainable fashion industry through inspiration, skills and networks.

The gender “question/ situation” Women in the textile and clothing industry are currently most represented in the lowest-paying jobs; their positions are affected by systemic gender constructs while their natural and acquired skills are assigned low value in traditional business structures. Often women in the textile industry are considered to be only consumers or working force, when the reality is that successful businesses in the fashion industry are also female led.

Goal of the day Within the shemakes project we are trying to formulate our community perspective on women innovators and the gender gap. We aim to create a space for people to feel comfortable in sharing their own experiences and perspectives, understand and learn from different points of views and together think of possible solutions to the situation. We emphasize the fact that Career Mapping is an important activity to apply because it offers the perfect opportunity for participants to share their visions and their career development paths.

Also, our goal is to encourage and help participants that are doubting their career and help them with their career pathing effort. Through the means of Career Mapping participants have the goal to analyze their path and also, they can get inspired by the way other participants conduct their activities. This being done, at the end we can help them discover different opportunities to be explored within their organization, allowing them the opportunity to study different roles and learn new skills.

3- Warm up Exercise

For the warm up exercise we decided to engage participants in a set of questions through the means of which they would get to know each other and their activity. We suggest the following questions:

• What is your main focus during the development of your brand/activity?
• Who inspires you from the local community to create your designer pieces?
• What type of events would you consider joining in the future?
• What is the innovation implemented by you in your activity?
• Through the means of which activities should we empower women to continue the development of their ideas?
• What do you expect your brand to be like in the upcoming period of time?

4- Career mapping activity

Our main focus of this event is to encourage participants to go further with their career path and determine them to find a way to achieve their further goals through innovation and exploration. The plan of activities we suggest to look like this:

• First of all you should decide what answers would help participants think better about their career and future plans, so that it would be easier to have the right question. For us, we decided that it would be helpful if participants would think about what is their: professional background (studies, previous work, environment where they developed, skills), age group (so that we know better the type of content to deliver for future events), innovation (so that we know how everyone perceives the concept of innovation, and how they implement it in their activities).

• We had a big round stand with the above mentioned questions sticked on. We asked everyone the above-mentioned “questions” - everyone wrote their answers on post-its and sticked them on the round stand below the “questions”.

• After they wrote their answers, we engaged in an exchange of answers between participants. They began to discover eachother and realized that they face the same challenges during their activities and sometimes they could have solved some issues if they benefited from the help of each other. Everyone talked about their innovation and what they consider to implement in the future activities in the light industry in our country.

• After everyone engaged in a share of experience, knowledge and visions we encouraged them to understand that the diversity of their activities and the way they conduct it makes them special and helps them shape the local T&C sector making it more innovative and diverse.

• In the end we invited everyone to create an online “get together group” where they would be able to ask for help, to address their visions and to find useful insights for them in the direction of the local T&C sector.

5, 6 & 7 - Sharing experiences, Conlcusions, Reflections & Networking Lunch

At this stage we recommend focusing on direct contact with each participant in order to make them feel heard and understood, so that everyone gets the chance to speak their mind and ideas.

We encouraged participants to feel free about their ideas and we asked each other to come up with an idea on how to make the local T&C sector more friendly and sustainable and less focused on gender stereotypes - offering equal remuneration for men and women. Supportive for both men and women during this path.

Ziphouse Lab example: Networking event ”Fashion Brunch Party”

This event took place in May 2022 wuth the Ziphouse community of innovators, creatives and entrepreneurs. Get inspired!!

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Last update: November 2, 2022