Center for Business of Fashion

The Center for Business of Fashion (CBF) develops and shapes a new breed of leaders in the fashion industry in its mission to develop a new subfield of academic research, integrating the various business schools disciplines and their joint application to the luxury and fashion industries. As a think tank that explores and addresses a variety of issues—economic, legal, international, strategic— impacting the fashion industry internationally and locally, CBF strives to be a global leader in business fashion training and research. Our business fashion research initiatives are cross-disciplinary, covering the many facets of the industry—including accounting, information systems, business law, finance, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and fashion industry supply chains—with the ultimate goal of increasing productivity, removing inefficiencies and buttressing the entrepreneurial efforts of designers and creatives in this space. The CBF has a particular interest in investigating the evolution of the global fashion business, including advances in technology and enterprise asset management (EAM), labor and human rights compliance and other factors creating new industry dynamics.

The Center also supports Rutgers Business School’s Business of Fashion Programs (both undergraduate and graduate), including the Masters of Science in Business of Fashion (MSBF), the first business school one-year MS in the United States to teach an MBA type curriculum, completely contextualized for the fashion and luxury industries. Our programs create a new breed of leader, bridging the gap between the executive and creative sectors of the market. The center's advisory board has helped enhance the RBS business of fashion programs in enhancing the curriculum which offers unparalleled depth in subject-specific offerings that are critical to leading the creative and luxury industries.

Further, the Center for Business of Fashion will provide research and educational curriculum and opportunities to support fashion entrepreneurship. As designers, e-commerce sites and other startups emerge on the landscape, targeted research and knowledge in entrepreneurial skills become critical for the growth and sustainability of businesses and brands.