A Secondary School PBL Activity at Leadership Prep School Frisco, TX
Part of the Principles of AV Tech, Art and Communications curriculum is fashion design and advertising. While thinking of a way to cover all the essential knowledge and skills with a cool project-based learning opportunity, I sat down at my computer with Netflix on in the background. If you're a teacher, you know that's how the best ideas come to mind! Anyway, Marie Kondo was making everyone rid themselves of everything that does not spark joy, when it occurred to me!
The students at Leadership Prep School would create some advertising blogs and images for the local thrift store Grace Bridge Resale in Frisco, TX.
Here's a little bit of background on the fashion and resale markets: After winter and before the official start of spring cleaning, the resale market has historically slowed down. This is when thrift stores are sorting inventory and reorganizing. But thanks to a little magic of tidying up, the resale market is now booming! If you watched Netflix at ALL in December, you probably know about Marie Kondo and her method of decluttering. What a perfect opportunity for some real-world applications of fashion design and advertising graphic design!
WHY GRACE BRIDGE?
Here at LPS Secondary Frisco we really want out students to have an attitude of service along with a growth mindset. All of our projects foster creativity, innovation, collaboration, critical thinking and an ethic of excellence. In order to actively participate in the community, I chose one of our great community partners, Grace Bridge Resale.
Grace Bridge is a local non-profit organization who invests the money earned at their resale shop towards community aid like an eye care clinic, disaster relief efforts, local food bank, and ministry around the world.
Great things are ahead in Frisco - The secondhand clothing industry is expected to grow 1.5 times the size of fast fashion within 10 years.
THE STUDENTS' PBL CHALLENGE
The project-based curriculum at Leadership Prep allows me to have a ton of fun while teaching the standards required in my CTE, career and technical education, courses. I started this project about a month ago with the overall goal to increase awareness of the resources provided by Grace Bridge Resale while having the students:
learn budgeting
gain fashion design knowledge
learn advertising skills
refining their video and
photo editing techniques.
Goal: Create 4 outfits under $35 a piece!
Along the way, several students doubted the ability to find clothing under $35 let alone an entire outfit for $35! So, we learned a little about how fast-fashion is made and how clothing is recycled. They learned that organizations like Grace Bridge Resale are instrumental in saving clothes from ending up in landfills AND how they reallocate funds to help the community.
Their doubt also gave me an excuse to go shopping, which I will never turn down! After we learned how to put together a professional interview outfit, I drove less than 15 minutes to the Frisco location.
I wanted to find a "professional dress" outfit that I could use for this project as well as keep around for next August's workshop on how to dress for professional presentations. Here was my inspiration outfit:
This outfit would cost around $260. As you can see, dressing for the job you want requires some money. I realize that students may not have the resources to put together an outfit like this for their class presentations, and they learned that people looking for jobs often struggle to maintain a professional wardrobe. For a person in between jobs or just graduating from college, this may be out of reach.
Good thing there's Grace Bridge Resale!
I spent around 20-30 minutes at Grace Bridge browsing their extremely organized selections and found everything I needed to pull off this look!
I didn't check the label on the jacket but the dress was a Shelby & Palmer dress- both priced at $6. Then I found Kenneth Cole Reaction shoes that were labeled $8.99! This shoe addict was beyond excited for that!
When I was ready to check out, I walked up to the counter and saw a picture that said yellow stickers were 99 cents that day! I bought that entire outfit and a pair of sneakers for $11!
I recommend Grace Bridge Resale if you're looking for a bargain! Even though it was a school project, this is definitely a store I would visit again and again since the clothes are nice, gently used, and sometimes even new with the tags still on it! They stock new things every day, so I learned to buy what I want when I first see it. The pop up sales and discount days are also posted on their Instagram page so give them a follow! The store is open at 9380 Prestmont Place, Frisco, TX 75035.
Monday-Friday: 10am-8pm
Saturday: 9am-6pm