How the Housing Crisis has affected Home Fashion Retail

The housing crisis has definitely started to affect home fashion retail industries. As most of you know we are currently in a recession and this is a big cause of why home fashion stores aren't doing so well. For example, Linen-N-Things just recently went bankrupt and they hope buy promoting half-off sales during the holidays will pay off their debt.

Another reason home fashion stores are not doing well is because people are now in need of just the basic necessities. They don't have that extra money right now to go buy a fancy rug or brand new bedsheets. For now, most people will use what they have because of the recession affecting their spending choices. Probably, grocery stores are benefiting the most because people will always need food.

As you can see, the recession has definitely come to affect home fashion stores. People are more in need of the basic necessities to get them through this difficult time. Home fashion goods are not the top priority right now and can be found at cheaper stores, like Wal-mart instead of Bed-Bath & Beyond for example. Hopefully, during this time of the year, since Christmas is around the corner, sales of the home fashion industries will start to increase.

Guest Speaker

I really enjoyed Elyse Mullis, the guest speaker, we had that came and spoke with our class today. It was nice to hear an example of a job you could get in the consumer, apparel and retail studies major. Also, I found it interesting that Elyse majored actually in English and minored in consumer and apparel.

However, she really knew what she was talking about. She taught me a lot about what I need to do before I graduate. I know now, that I need to look for as many internships as possible and not only look for one. Doing as many as I can would only offer me a better opportunity for different jobs throughout the field. Hopefully, I will find a internship where I get paid though, since she was unlucky in that aspect. Through hearing her speak on internships really showed me that they are really important and if it wasn't for her internship at the Greensboro Coliseum she wouldn't have been able to get a job at Westminster Fabrics in graphic design.

Overall, Elyse Mullis was a great speaker and thankfully we had the opportunity to hear her speak to us. She was very interesting, fun, and really showed us how much she loved her job now. She explained that it starts out not exactly how you want it to after graduating, but will turn into something great after a little hard work and effort. She seems really happy working for Westminster Fabrics and hopefully will continue to be. I really found this speaker interesting and fun. It was a good learning experience.

Picture from Westminster Fabrics.