Iowa City’s Wright House of Fashion launches graphic design apprenticeship to further creative pipeline for Iowa

IOWA CITY — A laundromat-turned-fashion house in Iowa continues to stitch new seams into Iowa’s tapestry of creatives.

The Wright House of Fashion, launched in 2022, opened up shop at the former Varsity Cleaners to build an ecosystem for underserved youth in the creative trades.

Now, after partnerships with fashion brands like Raygun, record labels like Warner Music Group and musical artists, it has launched Iowa’s first graphic design apprenticeship available to the general public. It’s an idea the founder said evolved with time as he saw needs in the workforce.

It builds on freelance work the nonprofit has already done with other clients and community organizations

“With those (other partnerships,) we were able to think about what else we could do that was more formalized,” said Andre’ Wright, founder of Wright House of Fashion. “When we’re thinking about the workforce and how we contribute to the workforce, the best thing we could offer was a skillset that would allow people to evolve in the creative field.”

Building a creative pipeline

Wright, who co-founded other movements like Humanize My Hoodie and the Black Liberation Space, built his career on graphic design. But the path he took isn’t wide enough for everybody.

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Getting experience requires experience. And if you’re fresh out of school, you have to prove yourself through a professional portfolio.

“If you don’t have that, it’s hard to get people to have interest in you. When I first started, I did a lot of pro bono work to build my portfolio,” Wright said. “When I had tough skin, I was able to go out on my own and drum up some work.

“How do you get a job in an industry where you haven’t had any projects? That’s pretty difficult.”

The apprenticeship is yet another pipeline in the infrastructure the fashion house is building to sustain Iowa creative industries.

Starting with one participant, the program will grow into cohorts over time with grants and support from Iowa Workforce Development. With more community awareness of the apprenticeship, Wright expects demand for work from apprentices to grow.

Soon, businesses and organizations will be able to hire the Wright House’s participants on a part-time, full-time or freelance basis. The Wright House of Fashion is designated as an intermediary, meaning it can provide training and hire apprentices to work for the nonprofit while presenting apprentices to other hiring agencies.

The program takes 1.5 years to complete, with 300 hours of training and 3,000 of education. Apprentices, who are paid and trained in accordance with federal regulations, receive wage increases every six months.

Each apprentice will learn how to dress for success, interview and create dialogue with agencies. They’ll also learn how to layout magazines and screen print, navigate the ins and outs of software like Adobe Creative Suite, sell themselves through their work and tell a story through their portfolio samples.

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It’s “everything under the sun,” to be a full-fledged employee in graphic design, Wright said.

“One thing I wish we could do is, as many kids play sports, figure out how to get them into creative fields with promising jobs,” he said. “Not everyone’s going to make it into the NBA or NFL.”

The first apprentice

Wisdom Konu, the program’s first apprentice, got involved with the House of Fashion during his junior year at Iowa City High School. The Kirkwood Community College freshman said fashion has captivated him for years. Now, the program offers a constructive path.

In high school, Konu managed social media for various clubs and wrote fashion articles for his school’s newspaper. Now, he interviews others and uses the answers to craft new designs for the needs at hand.

So far, he has designed packaging for coffee bags, worked for Dandelion Cafe in Iowa City, made content creation for social media, and laid out flyers for programs hosted at the Wright House.

Konu, 18, aspires to be a high fashion model. Becoming creative director of the brand with digital marketing skills would be an attractive backup option for him, though.

He draws artistic inspiration from classical art like Sandro Boticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” Renaissance period art and the MET Gala’s 19th century “Gilded Glamour” theme in 2022.

“I think this is something I can evolve in, that’s what I’m excited for,” Konu said.

Someday, he hopes to have a distinctly recognizable art style.

“When someone sees my art, they can tell Wisdom did that,” he said.

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Expanding apprenticeships statewide

Wright House of Fashion’s new program comes less than a year after the state created the Iowa Office of Apprenticeship, a wing under Iowa Workforce Development.

The new department, taking over what used to be handled by the U.S. Department of Labor, is working to expand the workforce’s understanding of how widely apprenticeships can be applied.

Today, there are 950 registered apprenticeship sponsors in Iowa. But with about 1,200 different apprenticeable occupations that go beyond traditional blue collar trades, the potential for growth is high.

“One of our goals is that education piece, helping people understand this isn’t just about the trades,” said Dane Sulentic, state apprenticeship director for the Iowa Office of Apprenticeship. “I think (there is) just a lack of understanding of what apprenticeship is and how it can be implemented.”

He said apprenticeships in creative fields aren’t common, but are growing.

On the heels of historically low unemployment, Sulentic said Iowa took over apprenticeship oversight in the state to foster a better connection between the needs of Iowans and the needs of employers. Between state and federal funding opportunities, supportive resources to help companies overcome barriers and the statistical benefits of apprenticeships, there’s a lot of reasons for companies to consider taking inexperienced applicants under their wings.

Overall, Sulentic said the retention rate for apprentices staying with the company that trained them is 90 percent. Trainees learn while they earn, and the gap in workforce needs can be closed faster.

“That’s the beauty of an apprenticeship program — people stay,” he said. “You invest in them, and they’ll invest in you.”

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.

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