Lipscomb’s fashion design comes ready to wear in mobile boutique

Since 2021, Lipscomb’s Department of Fashion and Design has operated a unique boutique shop on campus, housed in a mobile van and filled with students’ fashions, gifts, one-of-a-kind objects and more.

Last school year, the 1891 Lipscomb Fashion Retail Concept van participated in eight special events, including Nashville Fashion Week and the university’s presidential inauguration.

The fashion van enhances the curriculum of multiple merchandising classes, providing students the chance to apply their skills and innovation in a real-world setting. To operate the van, students work in teams for buying, planning, set-up, sales and inventory.

Sissy Simmons, assistant professor and department chair of fashion and design, and Charlotte Poling, fashion executive-in-residence, developed the idea for a retail shop on campus and discovered a friend of the university who had a former SWAT van available to donate.

Simmons and Poling liked the sustainability aspect of repurposing the van and found that it would fit their retail space and mobility needs, as well as providing good publicity when parked near Belmont Boulevard or in various spots on campus.

Students from other departments, such as the business as mission program, sell their goods in the van as well.