Shelly\nSalzbrunn is a senior Public Communication major. After graduating in December,\nShelly hopes to travel to Italy and begin working on a fashion project. She\u2019ll\nbegin working with American Eagle in May. This past summer, Shelly held an\ninternship position in production and sourcing for AE. Her responsibilities\nwere centered in the women\u2019s woven tops department, where her main focus was on\n\u201ccore\u201d tops (as opposed to detailed shirts). Moreover, Shelly was responsible\nfor vendor communications. Her duties included designing clothing in-house in\nNew York City, selecting materials, and sending both the design and materials\nto be produced in other countries. She also had to monitor daily changes made\nto price and collaborate with merchandising. Shelly was responsible for making\nsure that the pricing for all pieces were accurate, as well as monitoring and\ncreating updates in the system. As you can tell, Shelly had a full experience\nwith lots of opportunities to practice what she learned in the classroom!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
American\nEagle was an attractive company to intern at for Shelly because she is very interested\nin responsible sourcing. AE has a large task force working on sustainability in\nthe fashion industry. Shelly explained that she came to UVM as a nursing major\nbut always had an interest in fashion. After opening up her own online clothing\nstore her freshman year, she was successful in breaking even! Two summers ago,\nshe was an intern at aerie, where she discovered her love for fashion, PR, and\nmarketing. To get started, Shelly completed a career workshop called \u201cBrand\nGirls,\u201d which she became involved with after realizing she needed help to break\ninto the fashion industry. When she started the career workshop, she had a\nmentor that worked at Glamour Magazine who helped her with resumes, cover\nletters, how to gain a personal network, and how to use LinkedIn. Next, Shelly\napplied to about thirty-five different internships in fashion and after only\nhearing back from four, she was able to submit her resume to AE, complete\nresearch to prepare for an interview, and eventually get the job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shelly\u2019s internship\nwith American Eagle exposed her to many areas of the fashion industry! She learned\nhow to be a good teammate in a corporate environment, to be self-sufficient\nwhile maintaining professionality, and how to grow and take risks in her work.\nOverall, she was able to learn so much about the fashion industry in general,\nas well as how to work in a rapidly changing environment!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her first\ninternship with Aerie had a positive impact on her values because they value\nbody positivity and it was very clear in the work environment. She wants to\ncontinue to work for AE because of her closely aligning values and she is\nthrilled about their recent work with sustainability and getting involved.\nShelly\u2019s overarching goal is to work for a company with a good work environment\nthat also is empowering and uplifting. Her experiences have taught her how important\nit is to bring people up and how fashion is used as a vehicle to do that. She\ndiscovered that what people wear is really important to them and relates to\nconfidence, self-esteem, and individuality, which makes it incredibly\nimportant. A major lesson that Shelly has learned is that you can go into work\nthinking that you will not influence many people, but, what you are doing\nreally does impact so many peoples\u2019 everyday lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shelly\u2019s\ninternship experiences the past two summers have given her a glimpse into what\na future job would be like in the fashion industry. At the end of this past\nsummer, Shelly had to give a presentation to the Vice President of Production\nat AE, where she had to carry out three samples that the line could have. Her\nmain learning outcome was that although she had taken public speaking classes\nand was comfortable with presenting in class, it was still an amazing\nexperience to sit in a corporate office and prepare a final project for someone\nthat may be her future employer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shelly Salzbrunn is a senior Public Communication major. After graduating in December, Shelly hopes to travel to Italy and begin working on a fashion project. She\u2019ll begin working with American Eagle in May. This past summer, Shelly held an internship position in production and sourcing for AE. Her responsibilities were centered in the women\u2019s … <\/p>\n