In the grand tapestry of the fashion world, creativity is the color, but marketing is the thread that holds it together. At El Centro Campus, the Fashion and Marketing Program has been teaching students the business side of fashion, without garment production or design, for 40 years.

“We have a fashion design program around the corner from us, which we share a couple of classes. We support each other, but we do no pattern making, sketching or garment construction. We’re just a pure business of fashion,” said Carmen Carter, professor of Fashion Marketing at El Centro Campus.

The Fashion and Marketing Program is designed to equip students with the mastery of the fashion industry’s marketing skills, which includes product, price, promotion, advertising, public relations, sales and customer service and visual merchandising.

The curriculum provides a full degree and two certificates, including, C1 certificate, called visual presentation and the C2 certificate, called retail and manufacturing sales, leading them to wholesale or visual merchandising jobs.

“They tend to do wholesale jobs here, in the wholesale industry, at the [Dallas] Market Center, or some other entities that are close by, like the Fashion Industry Gallery and some other offshoots of wholesale, which is the background I come from,” said Carter.

The Fashion and Marketing Program weaves together classroom learning with real-world experience through partnerships, internships and cooperative education. For nearly a decade, the Fashion and Marketing Department’s collaboration with the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising in Manhattan has served as a kind of passport for students, granting them entry into the beating heart of the industry.

“We’ve had like a transfer agreement with them, where [the students] receive all the credits from our fashion marketing program,” Carter said, adding that as juniors, the students have the opportunity to work in the fashion capitol of the world.

To raise visibility, awareness about the program and connect students with the fashion industry leaders and luxury brands, the Fashion Marketing Department has partnered with luxury brands like Salvador Ferragamo and Chloe for an exclusive film screening including The Calendar Girl and AKRIS, which was screened Oct. 29 at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum.

The Fashion Marketing Program is exclusively available at the El Centro Campus. The next major event, Design Week 2026, is scheduled for April 20-23, 2026, and features programs including Architecture, Digital Arts and Design, Fashion Design, Fashion Marketing and Interior Design. For additional details, please contact [email protected].