{"id":419284,"date":"2025-12-02T10:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T10:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/419284\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T10:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T10:35:09","slug":"student-run-couture-a-la-cart-brings-fashion-on-wheels-to-uga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/419284\/","title":{"rendered":"Student run Couture A La Cart brings fashion on wheels to UGA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexis Derickson and Demi Gilstrap
\n\u00a0|\u00a0 Grady Newsource<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On any given weekday, students crisscross the University of Georgia\u2019s Tate Lawn, backpacks in tow. Parked amid the chatter and class changes, a white cart stands out from the crowd, its interior draped with handmade jewelry, colorful clothing, and carefully arranged accessories.<\/p>\n

Couture A La Cart isn\u2019t just any pop-up, though. It\u2019s a piece of UGA lore on four wheels.<\/p>\n

The mobile boutique, designed and operated entirely by students, serves as a launchpad from outside the classroom to real-world experience. What first began in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences evolved into a fully functioning retail venture that rolls style straight into the heart of campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis class is completely hands-on in that students run the entire course themselves through running the Couture A La Cart business,\u201d said Clair McClure, senior lecturer in textiles, merchandising, and interiors and the faculty lead for the project.<\/p>\n

When McClure first taught the class in 2017, she arrived with lectures and lesson plans about entrepreneurship. But, she quickly realized there was no time for theory. Her students were too busy actually doing the work itself.<\/p>\n

Mobile Classroom with a Mission<\/p>\n

Couture A La Cart gives students across majors the rare opportunity to oversee a business from the ground up. From buying and branding to visual merchandising and day-of planning, every decision is made by students.<\/p>\n

This fall, that creativity took on a new edge. The team\u2019s rock-inspired theme merges bold everyday wear with local flair. Evelyn Russell, the student general manager of Couture A La Cart, helps keep the cart and its creativity rolling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, all of our products are sourced from around the Athens area,\u201d said Russell. \u201cYou\u2019ll see some of these hats here are from Mess Hall, which is a business in downtown Athens. Some products are made by students, so a lot of the jewelry, I think these buttons, some of these prints, are made by students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each pop-up\u2019s rebrand acts as an evolving snapshot of Athens’ style through this community collaboration.<\/p>\n

Looking to shop local this season? <\/strong>Athens will have several holiday markets to choose from<\/a><\/p>\n

Learning and Evolving the Cart<\/p>\n

Beyond its charm, running a retail shop on wheels can sometimes come with its own challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This far in the cart\u2019s journey, those hiccups can look like a flat tire, dead cart batteries or faulty credit card machines. Yet, these very hiccups are what help keep the class at its most valuable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s honestly the hardest class I teach because I can\u2019t predict what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d said McClure. \u201cNow, approaching eight, nine years of teaching it, what I love the most is seeing students fail and then thrive, because it always happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Passing the Fashion Torch<\/p>\n

As semesters pass, so does the responsibility for keeping the cart, and its legacy, alive. What was once a class project grew into a living tradition, passed down from one cohort of student entrepreneurs to the next.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most beautiful things is coming back and seeing the next generation who set up the cart after you, and seeing kind of the improvements and things that they came up with that you wouldn\u2019t have thought of, and just being able to cheer each other on,\u201d said Russell.<\/p>\n

Each pop-up carries the imprint of the students before it with new ideas, new designs and the same close attention to Athens\u2019 creative spirit. With every stop across campus, Couture A La Cart adds another chapter to UGA\u2019s style identity, proving that on-campus fashion doesn\u2019t just walk the runway \u2014 it rolls right through campus.<\/p>\n

Alexis Derickson and Demi Gilstrap are students at the University of Georgia reporting for Grady Nightshift.<\/p>\n

This reporting originally appeared on Grady Newsource (gradynewsource.com), the news organization covering northeast Georgia staffed by journalism majors at the University of Georgia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexis Derickson and Demi Gilstrap \u00a0|\u00a0 Grady Newsource On any given weekday, students crisscross the University of Georgia\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":419285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[691,40811,64,148294,1582,276,10857,41524,407,2488,10574,189484,4353,2487,2961,224,5337,1539,450,1457,1451,41345,9207,645,2490,5921,646,16995,4280,5541],"class_list":{"0":"post-419284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-apparel","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-business-education","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-colleges","15":"tag-colleges-u0026-universities","16":"tag-education","17":"tag-enabled","18":"tag-fashion","19":"tag-fashion-u0026-style","20":"tag-georgia","21":"tag-highlights","22":"tag-la","23":"tag-los-angeles","24":"tag-losangeles","25":"tag-of","26":"tag-overall","27":"tag-overall-positive","28":"tag-positive","29":"tag-small","30":"tag-small-business","31":"tag-story","32":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","33":"tag-style","34":"tag-u0026","35":"tag-universities","36":"tag-university","37":"tag-university-of-georgia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115649532730595549","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}