Four Lehigh College of Business students were awarded $7,500 scholarships as winners in the 2023 Fashion Scholarship Fund Case Study Scholarship Challenge: Rehan Naeem ’23 marketing major; Alyssa Albano ’24, marketing major; Emma Flinchbaugh ’24, marketing and psychology major; and Kimiko Quayle ’25, an undeclared business major, minoring in graphic and apparel design.
The Fashion Scholarship Fund (FSF) awards over $1 million in scholarships each year to U.S. college students with the goal of helping students enter and succeed in all sectors of the fashion industry, according to its website.
This year the FSF received 513 case study submissions from 56 universities; 127 applicants will be awarded scholarships. Within the case study disciplines, 50% of the scholarship recipients are from the three business disciplines—marketing analytics, merchandising and business strategy. The other 50% are in design and product development.
This year's case studies submitted by the Lehigh winners varied greatly. Naeem’s was aimed at PUMA and how they could double down on new technologies to capture a portion of the under-penetrated VR/metaverse market. Albano demonstrated why Lululemon should implement NFTs to increase brand loyalty and analyzed which strategies are effective at tracking customer retention. Flinchbaugh’s was for Warby Parker and how it could be leveraging AI to build and track the Gen Z consumer base. Quayle designed a sustainable clothing line for the popular bohemian brand Free People called "Patches of Past Lives,” which focuses on customers shipping pieces of clothing that they don’t wear anymore to the company, then the company uses patches from those fabrics to make one-of-a-kind pieces for the customer.
“The FSF offers scholarship winners career-boosting talent acquisition events, internships, mentorships and exclusive educational and networking events,” said Nevena Koukova, associate professor, Lehigh Business marketing department, and campus faculty adviser for the FSF scholarship competition. “Scholars also have access to the fashion industry’s most influential leaders and companies.”
Lehigh has been participating in the FSF competition since 2007, averaging two to three scholarship winners each year with six winners in 2020. In 2021, Lehigh Business student Evelyn Siao ’21 won the top prize of $17,500.
The competition is open to all students, not just business majors. The 2024 FSF case study prompts will be published in early 2023. Lehigh students should contact Koukova for more information. The deadline to apply is October 2023.
