The Suitex Experience: Interning in the Fashion and Beauty Industry

*An inside look into the summer experience of our intern, Courtney Witherspoon. She is from the United States of America and worked with Suitex International for two months with the human resources team.*

For the summer, I had the pleasure of interning with Suitex International to focus on human resources within the fashion and beauty industry. My role was to determine the top 100 American fashion companies within the fashion and beauty industry.

My goal for this project was to provide Suitex International with information about the job availability in the American fashion industry and learn how to better serve those interested. There are many differences between the American fashion market and the Italian fashion market, so my research is based on the various types of American stores and the careers that are offered.

In order to find the company information, I used several lists such as the top fashion companies in the world, America’s richest self-made women, and mall directories to find the companies. After doing my research, I was able to find 138 companies and 34 parent companies within that number. The top companies within the list based on revenue is as follows:

1.       Nike: $107.83 billion

2.       TJX: $51.01 billion

3.       L’Oréal: $30.08 billion

4.       Ross: $29.80 billion

5.       Gap: $13.26 billion

Many of the stores that had high revenues such as TJX, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Ross, JC Penney, and Nordstrom are known as being either an off-price or department store. These stores contain men’s fashion, women’s fashion, children’s fashion, junior’s fashion, shoes, beauty, home, and accessories.

The most preferred categories in the United States are women’s fashion, sportswear, footwear, and off-price/department stores which contain all 3 of the previous categories. Women’s fashion in the United States brings in $121,099.14 million in revenue. Also, sportswear in the United States is very popular for everyday wear. Lastly, footwear it is the most common purchases made especially for men. Within the last 12 months, 43.77% of people between 18 to 29 had purchased athletic shoes (Statista 2018). Department and off-price stores have the advantage with supplying multiple products that are increasing the overall revenue for the fashion market within the United States.

The most requested jobs in the American fashion industry are sales/retail management, administration, finance, engineering, and e-commerce/technology. For entry-level retail jobs (0-2 years of experience), sales managers have the most availability. If you are newly searching employment in the fashion industry, then this is a great field to enter into the American fashion industry. Based upon my research, I would highly recommend entering into the American fashion job market!

Courtney B. Witherspoon
Major: Management and Society
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA at Chapel Hill