Respected Hiring Manager,
As an individual who has a passion for fashion and enthusiasm for style, I am delighted to submit my application for this role at your company, which was a full-time job posting. As a recent graduate from the New York City College of Technology in City University of New York (the third-largest urban university in the world) with an Associate of Science degree in the Business and Technology of Fashion, as well as currently a senior in the Bachelor of Science degree for same major graduating in June 2020, I’m confident that my knowledge in the field of Fashion Business, experience in online and in-store Retailing and Wholesaling, Fashion Content Writing and precise attention to detail would make me an asset to the team at your company.
In my former role as a Sales Associate at the 5th Avenue Global flagship store of UNIQLO, I was known for my quick problem-solving approach and exceptional customer service. I was a part of the Women’s Fashion department and was responsible for everything from the sales floor and fitting rooms to stock rooms and re ticketing of the merchandise. Since it was a 5th Avenue location, most of our guests were tourists and English was not their first language, so I was known for helping guests as such as I can understand 4 languages! Many times, even though I didn’t speak the same language as them, I would still not give up on them, I would communicate through actions and somehow take them to the customer service desk. One of my records is selling to a guest who spoke Spanish and even though I am not bilingual Spanish, I helped her out and made about a $1000 sale. She was so happy with my service that she made her son write a review for me on the company’s website! Even though I was just a sales associate there, everyone knew me by my name and I feel it is a very proud feeling when your name gets a shoutout in every morning meeting in a store with 500 employees to appreciate your dedication to your work.
In Fall 2020, I have interned as a Fashion and Beauty Content Writer at CollegeCandy.com for COED Media Company. Every week I wrote 3 to 5 fashion stories as well as occasional longer features. I worked closely with my editorial team on content ideas, calendars, and coverage. I worked with my team to further seed my published stories on social media platforms to gather more web traffic. I am proficient with Google Analytics so I can track the performance of my published make the articles more interesting I hunted and gathered relevant pictures and videos according to the article from YouTube, Shutterstock, Flickr, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms. I used databases given by the media company to research current events and trends in the fashion industry. Besides current event articles, I wrote product recommendations as well as provided their prices and appropriate direct product ordering links for the reader’s / shopper’s convenience. I thoroughly understood the Search Engine Optimization guidelines and followed them when writing stories. I gave appropriate and catchy SEO titles with concise SEO description and accurate tags for each story. My resume has a link to my author page that has all my articles published for COED Media to date.
Besides my work experience, I have been an exceptional student at my college with a stellar reputation and a strong 3.7 G.P.A. My professors have noticed my leadership qualities and hence they always felt confident in making me in charge of group projects and other activities. One of my projects was a book I wrote and the Director of my program, Dr. Alyssa Adomaitis was so impressed that she suggested I forward it to her so she can further send it for consideration to publish in the City Tech Writer. Recently, in February 2021, my book was chosen to be published in the City Tech Writer, the journal of outstanding student writing produced at the New York City College of Technology. I have made many more projects so far in courses such as Product Development, Trend Forecasting, and Visual Merchandising, etc.
I immerse myself in reading fashion editorials like Vogue, Allure, Business of Fashion, WWD, as I kept track of current events for my Contemporary Designers and Luxury Markets course. Moreover, I have been learning more about business models of historic fashion brands from the 19th to 21st century such as Chanel, Dior, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, etc. and expanding my knowledge about their growing brand portfolio over the years, hence predicting the future of contemporary fashion through the influence of these luxury brands. Sustainability and Smart Textiles are also some of my favorite topics to research on, as I took the Contemporary Issues in the Fashion Industry course. Through this course, I gained extensive knowledge in areas such as Ethics and Fairtrade in apparel manufacturing, Sustainability issues in fashion, as well as learned environmental problems and their solutions, and a rapidly increasing sector of Smart Textiles in the apparel industry where fashion and technology intersect!
Through a Global Sourcing and International Trade Policy course, I have read The Globalization of the U. S. Apparel Industry: Making Sweatshops by Ellen Israel Rosen which is a great book as it has helped me understand how global politics has also played a major role in the trade liberalization of the textile and apparel industry. This course has shown me a financial viewpoint of textile items, its innovations, new foreign trade policies, and global sourcing specifically for United States apparel businesses. In the past 10 years, the retail industry has significantly changed, so to develop a stronger understanding of international retailing and marketing practices that I can further apply in a practical retail managerial environment, I have also taken an in-depth course of International Retailing to further expand my knowledge in building a brand that retails internationally. Creation of a brand from the scratch involves thorough economic, political, social, geographic, and climatic research as our goal is to pick a strategic location that best benefits our brand’s revenue. Since in this age, especially with COVID 19 being a barrier for many businesses, I have learned how to create an international level retailing website through this course which will be greatly beneficial in the digital future. I have frequently used the Fashion Snoops database for my research in all fashion business courses as it has revealed the future trends in the fashion industry to me way ahead of time! In addition, EBSCO and LexisNexis are also some databases that I normally use to research my project topics.
Moreover, to make myself more valuable, in summer 2020 I started a Fashion Designing Online course from a renowned private business school in Delhi, India known as the International Management Institute (IMI). In this world of everything turning digital from our newspapers to illustrations, I am one of a few people who have excellent hand sketching skills. You can have a look at my ePortfolio to see my skills. Working in your company is an exciting opportunity for me to use this educational background, as well as learn more about the growing fashion industry.
I have linked my resume, which further details my education and certifications. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, and I look forward to the opportunity to speak with you further. Thank you for your time and consideration in reading my letter.
Sincerely,
Musarat Merchant
