Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen: A Passion for Fashion

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03/24/2020 Added

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Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen had a career in the fashion and merchandising industry before coming to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In her classroom, Dr. Jorgensen provides a holistic education that prepares students for a variety of industry careers. In this episode of Faculty 101, Dr. Jorgensen shares the major trends consumers can expect to see when they go shopping in the next decade. Show notes: Learn more about Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen ›› https://cehs.unl.edu/teacherx/jorgensen/

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[00:00:00.723](upbeat music)
[00:00:04.180]In the year 2030,
[00:00:05.640]a shopping trip is done via virtual reality.
[00:00:08.898](bright upbeat music)
[00:00:11.720]A new jacket you buy
[00:00:13.160]is made of material that also delivers your vitamins.
[00:00:16.672](bright upbeat music)
[00:00:19.060]And the company that sells that jacket,
[00:00:21.610]creates the item out of recycled clothing.
[00:00:24.844](bright upbeat music)
[00:00:26.830]Those were a few of the trends
[00:00:28.270]consumers might see in the next decade.
[00:00:30.840]A topic under discussion
[00:00:32.340]by students in a class taught by Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen.
[00:00:36.590]She's an Assistant Professor in the
[00:00:38.480]Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design
[00:00:41.890]at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:00:44.320]Sustainability will be the top thing
[00:00:46.370]to be looking out for in the future.
[00:00:48.540]We will see more and more sustainable brands starting up
[00:00:52.320]and the popularity of those brands will increase.
[00:00:55.580]We will also see some minimalistic,
[00:00:58.260]clothing and we will also see,
[00:01:01.140]clothing that works for either gender.
[00:01:04.960]In this episode of Faculty 101,
[00:01:07.180]we follow Doctor Jorgensen's path
[00:01:09.210]from Minnesota to New York to Nebraska,
[00:01:11.829]and we learn what rural retailers need to do to survive.
[00:01:16.180](bright up beat music)
[00:01:17.230]Attention switch partners now.
[00:01:18.840]To be able to inspire young people.
[00:01:20.872](crowd laughs)
[00:01:21.740]Ace your finals.
[00:01:22.720]It's really rewarding.
[00:01:23.870]I love the students.
[00:01:25.850]Welcome to Faculty 101 life hacks
[00:01:28.890]and success stories from Nebraska Faculty.
[00:01:31.902](bright upbeat music)
[00:01:34.550]First step orientation.
[00:01:36.860]Who is Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen?
[00:01:39.410]So we are going to jump into working
[00:01:42.210]on mock interviews, I wanted to -
[00:01:44.850]Jennifer Jorgensen sets up
[00:01:46.390]a professional development exercise for her students.
[00:01:49.640]They sit at tables facing each other
[00:01:51.640]and conduct interviews.
[00:01:52.932](students murmurs)
[00:01:55.070]Before joining the faculty, Doctor Jorgensen worked in
[00:01:57.860]marketing and merchandising for Calvin Klein
[00:02:00.400]and Puritan's Pride Vitamins.
[00:02:02.460]She brings that experience to the classroom,
[00:02:05.020]to benefit students like Audrey Foster.
[00:02:08.260]Doctor Jorgensen is amazing.
[00:02:10.160]She, yeah, she's just, I love how she keeps
[00:02:13.420]the industry in mind with a lot of what she teaches us.
[00:02:16.540]Audrey dreams about a career with 4-H
[00:02:19.230]the youth program she was involved in
[00:02:21.250]growing up in Broken Bow, Nebraska.
[00:02:23.450]I love textiles, love fashion,
[00:02:25.360]but my career path is I wanna, educate youth
[00:02:28.520]and educate them on both textiles
[00:02:30.480]and a whole bunch of other topics.
[00:02:31.550]So I wanna go into extension
[00:02:33.430]and work with 4-H through youth and everything.
[00:02:35.999](bright upbeat music)
[00:02:39.550]4-H was part of
[00:02:40.660]Doctor Jorgensen's experience too.
[00:02:43.110]She's from Northern Minnesota,
[00:02:44.600]and followed a path that included a stint
[00:02:47.030]at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology
[00:02:49.545]before doing her graduate work at UNL.
[00:02:52.700]Doctor Jorgensen says,
[00:02:54.000]UNL offers students like Audrey, a holistic education.
[00:02:58.140]We are teaching everything from
[00:03:00.010]men's wear, women's wear, children's wear.
[00:03:02.580]We are teaching textile science.
[00:03:04.310]So everything from the fiber,
[00:03:05.843]all of the way to the consumer
[00:03:08.200]and how we would sell to the consumer.
[00:03:10.300]She says, it's an academic background
[00:03:12.280]that prepares students for anything.
[00:03:15.300]When times get tough,
[00:03:16.410]When the economy tanks,
[00:03:18.150]our students are in a better position
[00:03:20.450]because they can step into many different roles,
[00:03:23.870]whereas somebody who has a very specialized education
[00:03:26.570]just can't do that.
[00:03:28.090]And that's actually one of the reasons
[00:03:29.410]why I had an opportunity at Calvin Klein
[00:03:31.990]was because they had laid off 50% of the workforce
[00:03:36.140]because those individuals were very specialized
[00:03:38.970]and then ended up bringing on people like me,
[00:03:41.640]who could step into multiple different areas.
[00:03:44.163](bright upbeat music)
[00:03:45.190]Next up lab work,
[00:03:47.000]a deep dive into research and creative activity.
[00:03:50.248](soft upbeat music)
[00:03:59.850]In 10 years, when consumers go shopping,
[00:04:02.450]they might be sitting at home,
[00:04:04.050]wearing virtual reality glasses.
[00:04:06.325](upbeat music)
[00:04:08.970]Doctor Jorgensen studies,
[00:04:10.490]how consumers use technology to gather information
[00:04:13.860]and make purchasing decisions.
[00:04:16.110]She studied social media sites like
[00:04:18.140]Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram,
[00:04:20.350]and eventually moved into the area of virtual
[00:04:22.870]or augmented reality
[00:04:24.710]consumers wearing headsets, enter a store online,
[00:04:28.166]pick up a garment and look it over
[00:04:30.410]all from the comfort of home.
[00:04:32.520]And you are able to move around the store.
[00:04:35.260]You're able to pick garments up off of the fixture.
[00:04:38.410]And what's great about virtual reality,
[00:04:40.610]is when a consumer picks something off of the fixture,
[00:04:44.060]they can see the product description,
[00:04:46.016]they can see the sizing chart,
[00:04:48.560]they can see that particular product
[00:04:50.480]walking down the runway,
[00:04:51.710]if they want to, they can see a 360 degree view
[00:04:55.090]of that product on a person.
[00:04:57.150]Another thing I love about virtual reality in retail
[00:05:00.450]is that you can customize your store experience
[00:05:02.840]based on what you want.
[00:05:04.280]So if you want a crowd in the store,
[00:05:08.370]you could have a crowd in the store.
[00:05:10.290]If you want to shop alone , you can shop alone.
[00:05:13.050]If you want to hear music,
[00:05:14.580]or if you don't want to hear music, you can customize it
[00:05:17.090]so that you have those experiences.
[00:05:19.287](bright upbeat music)
[00:05:23.860]While virtual or augmented reality
[00:05:25.967]keeps consumers at home,
[00:05:28.160]Doctor Jorgensen also studies retail in rural communities
[00:05:32.200]and how businesses can keep their doors open.
[00:05:35.130](bell rings)
[00:05:35.963]One of the biggest ways
[00:05:37.190]that rural retail can survive
[00:05:38.720]is of course creating an experience for the consumer.
[00:05:42.550]Consumers are wanting an experience
[00:05:44.610]when they are shopping in a brick-and-mortar store.
[00:05:47.250]And luckily rural retailers
[00:05:48.900]are very well situated to be able to provide that
[00:05:51.800]for consumers,
[00:05:52.960]because typically the manager or the business owner
[00:05:56.590]is the person that's typically there running the store.
[00:06:00.020]And so they can create those relationships with consumers.
[00:06:03.480]Successful retailers
[00:06:04.880]incorporate everything from trunk shows and classes
[00:06:07.690]to personal shopping and excellent customer service.
[00:06:11.210]Research helps them know what works and what doesn't.
[00:06:14.300]They don't have the time to figure out
[00:06:16.130]these things on their own because the fashion industry
[00:06:18.950]moves so quickly.
[00:06:20.590]And so they need us
[00:06:21.840]to help supplement the information
[00:06:23.790]that they're using to figure out what their consumer wants
[00:06:26.780]and how they find information about their consumer.
[00:06:30.390]For her students,
[00:06:31.350]Doctor Jorgensen encourages a willingness
[00:06:33.590]to conduct research and find innovative solutions.
[00:06:37.110]They absolutely have to be problem solvers.
[00:06:39.980]That is the number one skill that they have to have
[00:06:42.020]in the industry because our industry has
[00:06:44.630]problem after problem after problem.
[00:06:46.340]And they are going to be the leaders of that change.
[00:06:49.530]And so first and foremost,
[00:06:51.399]they have to have those problem solving skills.
[00:06:54.030]And that does tie back to research.
[00:06:56.500]They have to have enough information
[00:06:59.030]to go into a meeting in the industry and say,
[00:07:01.590]these are the changes that need to be happening
[00:07:03.650]because of this information
[00:07:05.670](bright upbeat music)
[00:07:06.610]Ready for office hours?
[00:07:08.120]How did Jennifer Jorgensen get here?
[00:07:10.087](bright upbeat music)
[00:07:14.340]Doctor Jorgensen has always been curious,
[00:07:16.690]even in the early years of her Minnesota childhood.
[00:07:19.790]Even as a baby, my mom would joke
[00:07:22.120]that she always was looking at the back of my head
[00:07:24.520]because I wanted to see out across the room
[00:07:26.550]instead of looking at one person who's holding me.
[00:07:30.080]And so I've always been wanting to observe everybody,
[00:07:33.030]and everything around me,
[00:07:34.290]and that has definitely continued as I've moved forward.
[00:07:38.660]And I feel like I've kind of created a career out of it
[00:07:41.430]because I now observe consumers in the retail space.
[00:07:45.440](machine running)
[00:07:48.110]An interest in retail and merchandising
[00:07:50.440]can be traced back to a childhood obsession with barcodes.
[00:07:54.457](machine running)
[00:07:56.600]I wanted to be a grocery store cashier
[00:07:58.400]because of the UPCs and scanning the UPCs.
[00:08:02.130]So I would have my parents of course,
[00:08:04.820]buy groceries, bring them into the house,
[00:08:06.700]and I would pull out a placemat
[00:08:09.640]and I would pretend that it was the scanner.
[00:08:12.110]And I was scanning every single item to our house.
[00:08:16.583](machine running)
[00:08:19.085](upbeat music)
[00:08:20.840]But grocery store clerk,
[00:08:22.390]wasn't her career of choice,
[00:08:24.400]a 4-H event called Fashion Review
[00:08:26.520]influenced Doctor Jorgensen's interest
[00:08:28.700]in the world of design and merchandising.
[00:08:31.200]And she picked up business skills from her parents.
[00:08:34.450]My family also owned different businesses.
[00:08:36.980]And so as my parents would say,
[00:08:39.110]we would hire and fire and make all of the decisions
[00:08:42.360]around the dinner table.
[00:08:43.830]And so I definitely learned a lot about business
[00:08:45.959]through that experience as well.
[00:08:48.236](bright upbeat music)
[00:08:53.840]Now it's time for a pop quiz
[00:08:55.950]random questions, life hacks, and wisdom for all of us.
[00:08:59.818](bright upbeat music)
[00:09:06.777]When the former Meghan Markle,
[00:09:08.410]now Duchess of Sussex wore Rothy's shoes,
[00:09:11.780]the fashion spotlight zeroed in on the brand
[00:09:14.440]that's made from plastic water bottles.
[00:09:16.854](soft upbeat music)
[00:09:18.930]Jorgensen says the shoes are one example
[00:09:21.470]of a strong trend in the industry.
[00:09:23.960]All of the companies who have
[00:09:25.650]some kind of sustainability initiative
[00:09:27.659]or another, socially responsible initiative,
[00:09:33.060]those are the companies that are doing the best right now.
[00:09:35.810]What's her style?
[00:09:36.970]It's pretty basic.
[00:09:38.450]I like to stick to solid colors
[00:09:41.200]just because they are more sustainable.
[00:09:43.690]So I can wear something that I've purchased for decades
[00:09:46.830]instead of just a year or two.
[00:09:49.540]And so I definitely stick to some of those classic pieces,
[00:09:52.640]where I can just rewear them over and over again,
[00:09:55.830]and I can get my money's worth out of them that way.
[00:09:58.640]She admits to a love of online shopping,
[00:10:01.230]but her favorite stress busting habit is,
[00:10:04.290]I absolutely love spending time with my dog.
[00:10:06.660]I have a 20 pound mutt, and he loves to go outside,
[00:10:11.090]he loves to go for walks.
[00:10:12.343]Dr. Jorgensen's favorite quote
[00:10:14.630]comes from something she saw
[00:10:16.140]on a visit to the Nobel Peace Prize Center in Oslo, Norway.
[00:10:19.990]The impossible is what takes a little longer.
[00:10:22.650]And I feel like that really speaks to me
[00:10:25.850]because when I started this position,
[00:10:27.790]I had so many different things I wanted to do and I
[00:10:30.580]wanted to get them all done now (chuckles)
[00:10:33.750]And I realized very quickly,
[00:10:35.670]there's no way that I could get everything done now
[00:10:38.400]because it was impossible.
[00:10:39.890]But day by day, year by year, I could chip away at it.
[00:10:43.030]And eventually I
[00:10:44.470]will get to what seems like impossible right now.
[00:10:47.430]Her advice for others.
[00:10:48.960]I would say my life hack would be
[00:10:51.680]to demonstrate gratitude and be grateful
[00:10:55.020]for the opportunities that you have
[00:10:56.610]and express that
[00:10:57.580]to the people who have provided those opportunities.
[00:11:00.320]I try to convey to my students as often as possible,
[00:11:03.440]say thank you for the big things,
[00:11:05.170]and of course the little things too,
[00:11:06.980]because you could make somebody's day
[00:11:09.270]and then if they need you,
[00:11:11.130]they know they can rely on you, if you need them again,
[00:11:14.133]you know you can rely on them as well.
[00:11:16.689](bright upbeat music)
[00:11:21.230]It's time for graduation day
[00:11:23.370]and final thoughts.
[00:11:24.379](students murmurs)
[00:11:26.510]Students in Doctor Jorgensen's classes are passionate
[00:11:29.490]about issues facing the fashion and retail industry.
[00:11:33.040]Kylie Hickson, a Fashion Merchandising major
[00:11:35.750]says before she shops a company or a brand,
[00:11:38.520]she does her research.
[00:11:39.850]I'mma big into research now
[00:11:42.280]ever since kind of taking Professor Jorgensen's class,
[00:11:46.282]she really emphasized that it's important
[00:11:49.300]to look into the backgrounds
[00:11:50.700]and so I always check if they're sustainable,
[00:11:53.300]just making sure you know,
[00:11:55.010]what they're about and kind of their standards
[00:11:57.490]is always important to me now.
[00:11:58.991](bright upbeat music)
[00:12:01.580]Doctor Jorgensen says
[00:12:02.780]the industry needs more students with the ability
[00:12:05.670]to deal with challenges of the future.
[00:12:08.530]We need people who are problem solvers,
[00:12:11.580]critical thinkers.
[00:12:12.920]We need people who are interested in things like chemistry,
[00:12:17.260]because that's a huge component of what we do.
[00:12:20.210]We need people who can think in a very technical way,
[00:12:24.920]because we do a lot of technical design and product design.
[00:12:28.580]We need people who are very interested in math
[00:12:31.070]because the merchandising component involves a lot of math.
[00:12:35.810]We need people with great analytical skills,
[00:12:38.510]and we also need people who are just genuinely interested
[00:12:42.180]in the industry,
[00:12:44.930]because if they aren't interested in the industry,
[00:12:46.880]they will burn out very quickly
[00:12:48.810]because of how fast paced the industry is.
[00:12:51.371](bright upbeat music)
[00:12:53.630]Many of her students will walk across the stage
[00:12:56.010]this year and pick up their diplomas.
[00:12:58.060]Jorgensen says it's gratifying
[00:13:00.060]to be part of their experience.
[00:13:01.922]I absolutely love working with students
[00:13:05.010]and I love sharing the experiences
[00:13:07.850]that I've had in the industry with them
[00:13:09.650]and getting them to think about how they can change
[00:13:12.440]the industry for the better
[00:13:13.625](bright upbeat music)
[00:13:18.040]That's it for this edition of
[00:13:19.210]Faculty 101 in the show notes,
[00:13:21.240]we link to more information about Jennifer Jorgensen.
[00:13:24.169](bright upbeat music)
[00:13:27.680]Faculty 101 is produced by
[00:13:29.570]the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:13:31.417](upbeat music)

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Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen: A Passion for Fashion

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