The Dallas College Fashion Marketing Program Spring Showcase set during the third annual Design Week will have a whole new look for 2026. The yearly portfolio exhibition of fashion marketing students opens April 21 in the SPACE at Adolphus Tower in downtown Dallas. It’s scheduled to run until April 30.
The fashion marketing showcase displays the work created by students from a variety of courses, including fashion promotion, visual merchandising, fashion trends and fashion styling. The showcase was originally hosted in the El Centro Campus Student Center, but was limited by space and other challenges
“You’re limited because it’s a lobby space. You got all this external interference, which raises the temperature a little bit for the students. It gets everybody on edge,” said Carmen Carter, lead faculty member of the Fashion Marketing Program. One of Carter’s primary objectives with this year’s showcase is to continue establishing the Fashion Marketing Program’s visibility and standing. “The internal struggle that I saw for fashion marketing as our program, is that a lot of people on the outside don’t know the difference between fashion design versus fashion marketing,” Carter said. As a part of the School of Creative Arts, Entertainment and Design, Carter’s goal is to help her students stand out in a crowded and competitive design field.
“We are still trying to break away and rise and stand on our own, and that’s what we’re fighting for every year, to get the recognition that we’re a standalone program and that we can be seen as just fashion marketing,” she said. Carter said CAED leadership is fully behind the decision to relocate this year’s showcase. “Vice Provost Silkey-Jones is super supportive. It’s her relationship that provided this space, this space called SPACE. It’s her getting out in the community down here and putting her arms around people and getting to know people that we got to lead on a space like this,” she said. Because the showcase is created and led by the students of the program, the venue change signals both growth for the program and increasing opportunities.
Dexter McDonald Jr., student creative director of the showcase, said the new showcase location is evidence of the program’s ongoing growth. “It takes it from a juvenile school event and turns it into this cool event. It’s in the middle of downtown Dallas.”
Student Samuel Horner said this year’s venue change has created new problems to solve, but the pressure is well worth it. “The pressure at the end of the day is definitely a privilege. Our class is really excited to take on the opportunity to be able to do that. But alongside that, it definitely comes with a little bit of stress of trying to figure out how to best fill up the space, which is larger than the spaces that we used in the past.”
Faculty and student leaders alike said the relocation of the showcase marks a momentous turning point for the fashion marketing program.
“We expect less distraction because we’re in that dedicated space, more integration into the downtown culture to get them to realize that we’re here as well,” Carter said. As for the students, McDonald said people are in store for quite a showcase. “People should expect to see the utmost creativity, the utmost high-level execution. Whether it be from the visual merchandising side or the styling students, I don’t think they truly know what we’re capable of, and I’m really excited to put that on display.”
