COLOR wars at camp are a common American pastime, but the one that took place in a small building on East 53rd Street in Manhattan on a recent Tuesday was of a different stripe.
“Do you think that we need to come up with a cohesive, like, color palette?” asked Sara Mullally, 16, trying to sound diplomatic. She was seated with nine other girls at a rectangular lunchroom table, all rapaciously searching fashion magazines — Vogue, InStyle, Elle, Lucky — for images to represent the line of evening wear they were dreaming up.
On the table were piles of roughly torn magazine pages, colored pencils, bottles of Vitamin Water and cupcakes. There were nine other tables of girls, 50 in all, searching for inspiration for their own projects. There were only two males in the room, a reporter and a counselor.
“I just mean, like, I love the black and gold,” Sara continued, “but — — ”
“I
looove the black and gold,” interjected another girl, not looking up from her magazine. “Oooh, so Prada!”
Ellie Weber, who attends high school with Sara in Atlanta, tried to push the issue. “I feel like all the color palette’s going to be like — — ”
“It’s going to be like blush, green, off-white,” began another girl.
Consensus of any kind seemed elusive, until one girl held up a print ad featuring a glammed-out Dakota Fanning.
“Oh, my gosh, totally,” Sara said.
“Go ahead,” another camper said. “She’s our girl.”
For this group at least, swimming lessons, archery and ghost stories around the campfire are as passé as pompom socks. At Fashion Camp NYC, a five-day program centered at LIM College in Midtown Manhattan now in its fourth year, “campers” dream up their own fashion brands, tour museums, learn to blog, attend lectures by stylists and editors, and barnstorm shops like Barneys and Saks in trips known as “market visits.” The entire experience costs $1,295, which does not include housing or meals (most out-of-town campers stay in hotels with a parent).
“I used to go to summer camp, but it was just ...” said Madison Snyder, 16, also of Atlanta, trailing off and making a disapproving face. “We’re all into fashion and know we want to do something about it later in life, so we found out about this and took an opportunity just to learn.”
Fashion Camp NYC was dreamed up by a husband-and-wife team:
Gordon Josey, a full-time summer camp director, and
Fran Della Badia, a senior vice president for Coach. The two decided to combine their passions after parents of children who attend Mr. Josey’s other camp,
Twin Creeks in West Virginia, mentioned not knowing what to do in the summer with their daughters who would rather shop than learn to sail.
“Gordon came home one night and said: ‘Honey, I’ve got it. Fashion Camp,’ ” said Ms. Della Badia, who attends the first and last day of every session (there are three every summer).
The idea appealed to her, she added, because “I’ve always wanted to give back” to young women who didn’t know how to start a career in fashion.
Ms. Della Badia said she and her husband do not see Fashion Camp as a money-maker. Most years, she said, they break even on the program.
“When I started out in the business, I didn’t know the job I have today existed,” she said. “I called up a bunch of my friends in the industry and said, ‘Would you like to participate?’ And everyone said, ‘Yes, sign us up.’ ”
Among those who have given presentations at Fashion Camp are the wedding dress designer
Jenny Yoo, the stylist
Stacey Mayesh, and
David Duplantis, who heads digital operations for Coach. And the campers, who hail from all over the United States as well as from Taiwan, Colombia, New Zealand and Britain, have even more-luminous muses in their sights.
“I want to be the next Coco Chanel,” said Arizona Semones, a 12-year-old from Sun Valley, Idaho, taking a break from clipping magazines, “because she’s at the top of a fashion empire.” (Arizona’s sophistication extends beyond fashion. Asked where she had dinner the night before, she chirped, “We have a favorite restaurant called Nobu.” Indeed, she ate there four times that week, according to her mother, Susan Desko.)
Fashion Camp NYC is not the only camp catering to the young and style-obsessed. Last summer, Arizona learned to sew at Pali Adventures, an arts camp in Running Springs, Calif., that offers a two-week fashion program for $3,145. (She chose Fashion Camp this year because she wanted to learn the business and marketing side of the trade, she said.)
Texas Tech University offers a four-day fashion camp for $200 to $600; a similar program at Davidson Art Camp in Denver costs about $200. And for most of July, high school and middle school students can take pre-college courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.
But unlike F.I.T. courses, Fashion Camp NYC weaves fun into its program of professional development, the centerpiece of which is the brand that each girl builds as part of a team. Together they choose a product (say, an evening wear collection for college students on a budget) and build profiles of hypothetical core customers. The girls either sketch the products or cut images out of magazines that best represent their vision. At the end of the week, the brands are presented and critiqued.
And, oh yes, there are the market visits.
“Parents get a little upset sometimes when they see that,” Ms. Della Badia said. “They’re like, ‘We pay all this money and they’re going shopping?’ ” But she insisted the trips are educational.
“They have to be in stores because that’s where the business is happening,” Ms. Della Badia said. “You go into a department store and say: ‘Where do you go first? What’s on the front table? Is it seasonally appropriate?’ ”
Indeed, when Sara’s group (having named themselves and their brand Déclaration) visited Hermès on Fifth Avenue on a Thursday to find real-life examples of trends, the scene more closely resembled spies doing reconnaissance than camp friends on a shopping spree.
“We’re looking for the color red, snakeskin shoes and chunky knits,” Sara declared.
After ascending a white spiral staircase to the second floor, the girls used their iPhones to quietly snap photos of the desired items. (One lesson of Fashion Camp: taking pictures of merchandise will quickly get you booted from the finer stores.)
“By itself it’s fine,” Ellie Weber whispered of a potential blouse-and-skirt combo, “but it’s a little too busy together.”
“Love it!” Sara cooed about an oversize sweater.
Back in the camp workroom that afternoon,
Kristy Eléna, the head blogger for Sunglass Hut, showed the girls how to use their photos to make a blog post. (Not that they all needed the help: Sara and Ellie already run a blog focusing on fashion trends in their school.)
On the last day of camp, the girls, looking their professional best in tight skirts, heels, headbands and lipstick, presented their concept boards to a roomful of parents, “Project Runway” style. Ms. Della Badia was there to provide feedback, like an indefatigably upbeat Heidi Klum.
The first brand presented was Nature’s Jewels, an earth-friendly line of jewelry aimed at vegetarians living in Vermont and Colorado. “Ten percent of the profits would go to animal cruelty,” said Mariana Militello, 15. The group, like most of the ones to come after, used pictures of Blake Lively, Jessica Szohr and the Olsen twins to illustrate their ideal customers.
Arizona led the presentation of her group’s brand, Bloom, a clothing collection inspired by spring and sold only in boutiques.
“The colors our girl wears is light pink, light green, cream, light blue, gold, peach, coral, tan, turquoise, light yellow, lavender, red and white,” she said, cracking up both herself and the audience.
Ninety minutes later, it was time for
ice cream downstairs in the workroom. There were no tearful goodbyes, no buses pulling out of a parking lot.
Out on 53rd Street, Sara, Ellie, Madison and their parents were making dinner plans. Were they doing anything special for their last night in Manhattan?
“Yeah,” said Madison, breaking into an excited grin. “We’re going to see
Harry Potter.”
