A recent Epson press release about its partnership with the Fashion Exchange program at Toronto’s George Brown College caught my eye, and I followed up with Marilyn McNeil-Morin to learn more about the program and how it is helping the community and the industry.

George Brown College was founded in 1967 as one of Ontario’s charter colleges and has had a fashion department since its inception. During her tenure as Chair of Fashion, McNeil-Morin spent a fair amount of time doing strategic visioning for the School of Fashion. She comments, “We wanted to know where we should be looking to meet the needs of employers five to 10 years ahead instead of waiting for the trends to catch up with us. It takes at least three years to establish new programs, and if you wait until then, you have missed the mark in addressing industry needs.”

What she and her team determined were that there were two areas needing the most attention: sustainability and technology. She explains, “To address these findings, we created the Fashion Exchange in 2016, which initially began with two post-graduate programs, Sustainable Fashion Production and Apparel Technical Design. All our programs address either sustainability or technology—or both. The Apparel Technical Design program is very much about using technology through the whole supply chain of apparel, and both are about sustainable manufacturing and doing things in a more lean and sustainable way. To be sustainable, you have to incorporate sustainability into every decision in the process.”