The Summer School You'll Actually Love ft. Runway Addicts
This not your typical summer school. The Chicago based digital platform Runway Addicts have been working to close the gap between consumers and designers for the past seven years. Not only has the company been acting as the ultimate entity for independent creators to find the appropriate resources and tools they need to survive in the dog eat dog fashion world, but they also offer an inquisitive look into a plethora of issues the average consumers may face. This summer the platform has taken on the task of providing accesible online seminars for fashion enthusiast and designers alike through their summer school program . The classes which are available on the website, offer insight into an array of information including color theory, mending & repairs as well as branding identity. We got ahold of Runway Addicts Founder and Editor in Chief Amanda Harth to give us the rundown on Summer School and the future of the platform.
Tell me a bit about Runway Addicts?
Amanda Harth: Runway addicts started as a blog in 2013 where I would post on and off about different designers and their work and what I realized was that it started out of a necessity. There’s this void of independent designers having a place to share their stories, there’s not many spaces like that. That’s why I created the site and then it morphed into creating more events, exhibitions, panel discussions and workshops focused on connecting creators to their targeted consumers. We are developing an official space where people can actually talk to consumers and creators who are fostering those conversations on the platform, that will be the next phase we head into. That’s what Runway Addicts does, it’s really just kind of connecting the dots. They say to consume a lot smarter these days in terms of products that you purchase but there’s a lot going on so we are working on how we can streamline that and also focus on local designers based in Chicago or the midwest, there’s so many of them. I think that it’s important that they continue to receive support so I look at it as a resource and an outlet to share their stories, refer to us for consulting and just answer the questions they have at this point in their career.
What is Runway Addicts summer school?
A: We’ve been doing a series called summer school that we have been making a permanent staple around our company for fashion enthusiasts, designers or anyone who might want to try something out in fashion or hone some skills. Currently, they are free and available on our website so its easily accessible. The original plan was for them to be in-person workshops but given the current state of the world we decided to make it digital. With summer school some of it is light work and some of it is challenging, you can browse through a lot of different stuff, there’s a few lectures that go a bit more in depth as well as demonstrations.
Who have your programs influenced the most outside of designers?
A: Originally we targeted independent and emerging designers to share their stories but what we are finding is that the fashion enthusiasts are responding to what we’ve been doing the most. The enthusiasts are women over 30, those are the ones who have been giving us the most feedback, sharing, donating and learning. Colleges as well, there’s been people that work at Columbia University who have reached out and wanted to know more about the workshops. That was another reason we did it, we created these as a filler for college kids because a lot of people might not be going back to school this fall. So yeah, it was originally for designers and creators but it has shifted after seeing the response.
Check out Runway Addicts here or on instagram @runwayaddicts.
