Shawn Grain Carter

Education

BA, University of Virginia
MA, Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York

Biography

Shawn Grain Carter is an associate professor and luxury branding and retail industry consultant. Her fashion career began as an executive in buying at Bloomingdale’s. In 1986, she helped launch Bergdorf Goodman’s Home Furnishings Division "The Home on Seven" as a buyer. A few years later, Macy’s lured her away with a promise to launch their website, macys.com. Her buying and merchandising responsibilities included Designer Sportswear such as Michael Kors, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren.

Grain Carter serves on the scholarship committee of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc; in 2016, the organization awarded her its Lifetime Achievement Award. In September 2006, she received the Jack and Jill of America Distinguished Mother of the Year Award and in 2018, Jack and Jill of America gave her its Community Service Award, which she received at Lincoln Center of Jazz from Wynton Marsalis. She served as a judge for the Miss Africa Pageant in 2015.

Grain Carter was selected as a visiting scholar and lecturer at the University of Huddersfield in England in 2004. She recently taught in China in Hangzhou at Zhejiang Science Technology University (ZSTU) as a visiting scholar in 2016. She received her BA degree from the University of Virginia and her MA at FIT.

Research Interests

Ann Lowe and Elizabeth Keckley: Black American Designers to American First Ladies: Jacqueline Kennedy and Mary Todd Lincoln respectively. Exploring the extraordinary challenge of women-owned dressmaking businesses during slavery and Jim Crow through the 21st Century in America offers a scholarly dialogue on the couture tradition in the United States of America. The brilliance of their entrepreneurial and creative skills offers lessons for a fashion brand’s cachet and relevance today!

Courses

• FM 363 Corporate Social Responsibility
• FM 326 Sustainability in Fashion Merchandising
• FM 480A Structural Racism: Challenges in the Fashion Business Retail Industry