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Alumni Magazine
Alumni Magazine

Beyond the Seams

Sustainability, adaptability, and inclusion aren’t just fashionable buzzwords — they are concepts that define the flexibility necessary to make it in an ever-evolving business world. They also define an education that prepares students for the future of work with a focus on improving lives, the environment, and society on the whole.

Fashion design students at Thomas Jefferson University don’t follow the conventional path of haute couture. A well-rounded education based in science, art, and an awareness of the world around them prepares them for careers beyond the runway.

Fashion design degrees have taken alumni Caitlin Quirk ’12 and Jennifer Pellechio-Lukowiak ’90 from sketching and sewing to diverse careers in textile production, sustainable entrepreneurship, and publishing. Current students are taking their skills and designing adaptable clothing for an often-overlooked population — those with disabilities and special needs.

The following stories illustrate how an education based in progressive and innovative thinking has redefined the fashion degree at Jefferson.

Jump to: Caitlin Quirk | Jennifer Pellechio-Lukowiak | Style for Every Body

Caitlin Quirk ’12 | Style & Sustainability

by Cindy Lefler

“Eenie, meenie, miney, mo,” says Caitlin Quirk of Marmora, New Jersey. That’s how she decided her life’s work.

Quirk, who graduated from Jefferson (then Philadelphia University) with a bachelor’s in fashion design in 2012, could just as easily have become a zoologist. As she was preparing to graduate from Bishop Eustace Preparatory High School in Pennsauken, New Jersey, she still hadn’t made up her mind between the two career options.

“So, I eenie, meenie, miney, moed it and landed on fashion design,” she says. She applied and was accepted to several universities, but decided Jefferson was where she belonged.

“I chose Jefferson because I fell in love with the program,” she says. “I felt all the hands-on learning would be right up my alley.”

Because of the variety of classes and programs offered, Quirk kept changing her mind about where her focus would be. The design courses, photography classes, various internships, etc., gave her a diverse foundation and keen interest in many aspects of fashion design and more.

“By the time I graduated, I had a couple of internships in New York City, and I very quickly decided that corporate fashion just was not the life for me,” she says. “I needed something more hands-on … where I could be involved in different processes.”

She credits her rebellious spirit and a penchant for marching to the beat of a different drummer for making the bold decision to start her own business straight out of college.

With the support of her parents (free rent at their shore house!), she signed a lease for a store in the resort town of Ocean City, New Jersey, in 2013 and opened Bangles and Bows Boutique, an upscale children’s clothing store.

She started out producing her own line of clothing and hit the ground running. After two years she moved the store to a more central location in Ocean City and changed the name to Bowfish Kids, adopting a traditional retail model of purchasing wholesale and selling retail.

In 2017, she expanded the store into a children’s imagination-based entertainment and interactive salon called Bowfish Studios, which hosts themed parties, magical makeovers, and community events.

While the children’s costumes are purchased, Quirk designed and sewed the uniforms worn by her “imagination stylists,” the young ladies who work in the studio painting faces, styling hair, and running parties and events.

At the studio, children are transformed into mermaids, unicorns, sharks, dragons, pop stars … whatever they can imagine they can become.

In addition, Quirk conceived and constructed sets to add to the ambiance, including a castle made out of seashells, a life-sized Barbie doll box, and a fashion show runway — all designed to complete the fairy tale experience.

I didn’t go to school for physical space construction, but I was able to take the things that I learned in my design foundation courses and translate them into physical space design and construction. Different tools — same process.

Caitlin Quirk

“I didn’t go to school for physical space construction, but I was able to take the things that I learned in my design foundation courses and translate them into physical space design and construction,” she says. “Different tools — same process.”

Quirk says that the attention to detail emphasized by her professors at Jefferson was also a benefit when she began her businesses.

“What I learned in the design process is how little details really make a difference,” she says.

With Bowfish Kids and Bowfish Studios successfully up and running, Quirk also opened a coworking space in Ocean City. She then turned to her attention to a “passion project.”

Inspired by a speech given by Greta Thunberg at the U.N. Climate Action Summit in 2019, she vowed to create a more sustainable business model.

“Thunberg spoke so deeply to me … I decided to do my own homework,” Quirk says. What she discovered was that retail businesses like hers — although smaller than many similar businesses — create a considerable amount of trash.

“Every single piece of brand-new apparel that you purchase from a manufacturer comes in a single-use piece of plastic. I just truly became disturbed from the amount of waste that my small store was creating,” she says.

After taking a field trip to a local dump, she started attending conferences about waste and composting and educating herself in how to leave a smaller carbon footprint.

“It became my guiding light on all of my businesses … to create the least amount of waste possible,” she says. She made the decision that Bowfish Kids and Bowfish Studios would only do business with manufacturers that agree to ship items with no plastic and minimal packaging.

Her commitment to the environment led to the birth of a new business idea — one that came from Quirk’s own closet.

“I had a ton of clothes that I didn’t wear anymore that I was unwilling to donate because I know that when you donate clothing, unfortunately only 10 to 20 percent of it stays in circulation,” she says. The rest of it goes into the trash just because of the sheer volume and because many items, such as cocktail dresses and gowns, are simply not needed by most people who depend on donated clothes.

Staring at the pile of clothes on her floor, she had three options: try to sell them online (which she had tried previously, but had a bad experience); take them to a consignment shop (which is time consuming and frequently not financially worth the effort); or create a new business model that made the consignment shop a more fair, convenient, and attractive place.

And so, she says, The Garb Collection was born — “A place where people could be in control of what they sold while helping to eliminate clutter in their life and keep stuff in circulation rather than the trash.”

The Garb Collection is a brick-and-mortar consignment shop, but the business model is unique, she says. Instead of bringing clothing to a shop and having the shop decide what it will accept and setting the price, the seller is in complete control of the items they offer and price they ask.

In addition, it provides more of a “boutique” experience rather than a warehouse atmosphere that can be overwhelming.

The concept is based on one she discovered in Iceland when she was married there in 2023.

“We rent booth space and handle all of the marketing and sales,” she explains. Rentals can run anywhere from five days to 60 days, and the cost is $3 per day plus a one-third commission on sales.

Once a seller books the rental, they are provided with an account on The Garb Collection website. They tag their clothes, hang them up in their booth, then leave the rest to the store’s employees.

“The setup of The Garb Collection also takes some of the stigma away from buying secondhand clothing by making it more of a boutique experience,” Quirk says.

The store has been a great success. So much so, in fact, that Quirk decided to open a second location in early 2026 in Collingswood, New Jersey, in an old historic former theater building.

Contemplating her next move, Quirk says she would like to open 10 more Garb Collection stores over the next five years. Ambitious? Yes, but she says she knows whatever obstacles that might arise in future endeavors won’t be a problem because one of the greatest lessons she learned at Jefferson was the importance of problem solving.

“Jefferson put a lot of emphasis in all of my classes on problem solving — how to work through challenges and continue to see projects through to the end … It’s something that has 100% led to my success because it’s a model that I’ve kept re-creating,” she says. “At the end of the day, having the tools matter — but if you have the skills, you can do anything.”

Jennifer Pellechio-Lukowiak ’90 | Fashionista, Novelist, Survivor

by Cindy Lefler

First there was the yarn-dyed piece-goods manufacturer that focused on stripes — lots of stripes! — then off to London Fog designing men’s sportswear. After that came the job at the United Retail Group creating plus-size women’s wear, and later a brief foray into furniture and drapery design. A return to the world of apparel brought her to Liz Claiborne for several years, and then Macy’s. Moving from the hustle and bustle of New York City to North Carolina landed her at Bermuda Sands where she designed golf apparel. Seven years ago, she jumped to the “fiber side” of the fashion world at Cotton Inc.

Jennifer Pellechio-Lukowiak chuckles a little when she ticks through all the companies she has worked for and all the different jobs she has had over the past 36 years. It’s an impressive and diverse list — one she says was made possible by the multifaceted education she received at Jefferson.

“With the education I received I was given a sustainable career — a career that gave me a variety of pathways that I could explore,” says Lukowiak, who graduated from Jefferson (then the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science) in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science in fashion design.

“I wanted to make beautiful clothes, but the education led me down so many pathways that had me dabbling in color science, upholstery and furniture making, and draperies. It wasn’t just about sitting with a paintbrush all day, it wasn’t just about sitting in front of a sewing machine or a weaving loom, it was a well-rounded education.”

Because she was a native of the North Jersey town of Livingston, it was assumed Lukowiak would attend one of the New York fashion schools. But once she explored Jefferson, she decided it was a better choice.

What set [Jefferson] apart was that it offered a Bachelor of Science. It wasn’t just creative and inspiring — it offered a textile and a science component.

Jennifer Pellechio-Lukowiak ’90

“What set [Jefferson] apart was that it offered a Bachelor of Science. It wasn’t just creative and inspiring — it offered a textile and a science component,” she says, noting that the critical-thinking skills and scientific aspect were a game changer in her career. “The professors always made a point of saying, ‘You can put anything you dream of on paper, but you have to be able to understand how it’s made and constructed.’ They always stressed the followthrough.”

Those lessons helped her steer through the various positions she has held in different aspects of the field, including her most recent on the “fiber side” of the fashion industry.

In 2016, Lukowiak took a job as vice president of merchandising and design at Bermuda Sands, moving from the hustle and bustle of New York to North Carolina so that she and her husband, Pete, could be closer to their two sons, Peter and Connor, both of whom chose colleges in the state.

But a few years later, she became intrigued by a position at Cotton Inc., a company that supports U.S. cotton growers and importers. Lukowiak explains that the move was motivated by the importance of sustainability, which is becoming increasingly relevant in today’s society.

For years, she says, manufacturers have focused on what is the cheapest material to make — manmade fabric such as polyester and acrylic. “And we’re paying the price on that. What is that doing to our environment? There are islands of clothing that just don’t break down. Natural fibers provide sustainability, biodegradability, and breathability.”

Everything she learned throughout her career — starting at Jefferson — seemed to be wrapped up in one neat package in this new job.

“There’s so much about going to school at Jefferson that impacts my life today. There are lessons that I learned about critical thinking, about being pragmatic when it comes to managing a project, your time, your investment in yourself,” she says. “There’s this need to understand all sides of the cube; it’s a very different world view.”

That ability to see the cube from all sides was an asset when she took on a very different job — one that came as a complete surprise to her: novelist.

Her book, “Does This Outfit Make Me Look Bald? How a Fashionista Fought Breast Cancer With Style,” was born of her battles with breast cancer — once at age 38 and again at age 44.

“You’re thrown into this world of having to make decisions very, very quickly about something you know absolutely nothing about,” she says. “It’s like drinking from a fire hose — it’s so much all at once and it is so colossally overwhelming.”

She says that even though she had a wonderful support system of family and friends, cancer is still a lonely journey. “You’re the one losing your hair, you’re the one recovering from surgery, you’re the one taking a leave of absence from your job.”

At the time, all the books on breast cancer she found were told from an older woman’s perspective and carried the message to slow down and take early retirement, and maintained that cancer was a gift.

“And I said, ‘Hold on, gifts make you happy; cancer makes you cry,’” she says. “It is not a gift, and you don’t have to think of it as one. You don’t have to be all zen about it. It’s okay to have a rotten day, it’s okay to have a rotten week, it isn’t easy.”

She adds that she was not ready to slow down and retire. At only 38 years old she still had too much more to do.

Trying to navigate the overwhelming intricacies of cancer as a young woman inspired her to start keeping a journal.

“I did it to make myself feel better, to be a little snarky, to make the pity party a fun pity party,” she says. “And in starting to write things down, I began to think about maybe somebody else could benefit from what I’m going through.”

It was never her intent to write a book; she was hoping to simply put some thoughts down for a pamphlet to leave at the doctor’s office to help other women like herself find their way through the cancer journey. But she soon had 80 pages written and knew it was too much for a pamphlet — it needed to be a book.

The book — in which Lukowiak asks questions such as “Will your nurses mock you if you wear mascara to chemo and you only have three eyelashes?” — became her passion project.

The self-described blogger, fashionista, tattooed rock ’n’ roll mama, and indie author describes her book as a “witty and okay-to-laugh-out-loud journey through the unmentionables of breast cancer.”

“My feeling was that if I help one other woman feel a little bit less alone in this journey, then everything I went through makes sense,” she says.

The book was published in 2012 and was offered through Amazon, Apple Books, and Barnes and Noble. To Lukowiak’s surprise it was a hit, and messages came rolling in on Facebook, LinkedIn, email, and the website set up by the publisher.

Soon she had a whole network of women taking their own cancer journey with the help of her book. She calls the group of survivors “the best club that nobody wants to be a member of.”

Lukowiak, who is also on a national registry for cancer survivor speakers, often gives talks at American Cancer Society events and support communities, as well as at magnet high schools focused on medicine.

“I’m happy to share my story of resilience, humor, and how style can carry us through even the hardest chapters of our lives.”

Style for Every Body | Students Develop Adaptive Dashion for Clients with Disabilities

by Mike Bederka

“Clothing covers us. Fashion represents us. Everyone deserves an outfit that makes them comfortable in the world,” says Wendy J. Ross, MD, Director, Jefferson Center for Autism and Neurodiversity.

Jefferson’s Diversity in Design, a fashion design class that trains students to create clothing for individuals with physical disabilities, skin sensitivity, and autism, aims to do just that.

In the early 2020s, Jefferson implemented the class to teach students about designing for people whom the fashion industry has traditionally overlooked. This year marked the first time the students were paired with actual clients — several with Jefferson connections.

A required course for seniors, Diversity in Design helps foster an industry of inclusion where fashion is accessible to all, regardless of ability or disability, says Carly Kusy, fashion design program director. “By working with real clients, students practice a human-centered approach to design, addressing disparities in the fashion marketplace head-on,” she says.

Plus, the course prepares students for careers after graduation, where the adaptive wear market continues to grow. According to Forbes, the adaptive fashion market is projected to be worth about $400 billion this year with well-known companies such as Tommy Hilfiger, Anthropologie, and Nike leading the way.

Adaptive clothing is designed for individuals with disabilities, mobility limitations, or sensory sensitivities to make dressing easier, faster, and more comfortable. These garments often feature magnetic fasteners, Velcro, open-back designs, sensory-friendly fabrics, and wheelchair-friendly cuts, enhancing independence for users and simplifying care for caregivers.

Through a collaboration with the Jefferson Center for Autism and Neurodiversity, students take their designs from concept to creation for clients at the center.

Over three sessions last December, students presented their final looks to fashion faculty and six clients, having worked closely with them throughout the fall semester. Among them were Eliza McGann, an active 2-yearold with Down syndrome and limb difference; Amelia Bryson, a neurodiverse 10-year-old; and Amanda Parezo, a Jefferson occupational therapy professor who was paralyzed from the waist down after being struck by a stray bullet in 2021.

“Corporate massmarket fashion doesn’t always include people like Eliza,” says her dad, Sean McGann, MD, a Jefferson clinical associate professor. “To know these fashion students get this education and experience — making clothes for people who might look a little bit different — is awesome. Working at Jefferson and this being a Jefferson project makes it really meaningful to be here.”

“I’m wildly impressed with the work the students did,” adds Eliza’s mom, Lisa. Some of Eliza’s new looks included a playful coat with magnetic closures and an adjustable sleeve. Fashion student Ella Cascone worked closely with Eliza and her parents over the fall semester to brainstorm, design, and refine an adjustable dress.

“The fashion industry can feel materialistic sometimes, but to interact with a client who struggles in this area and provide a product they couldn’t get elsewhere felt amazing to be a part of,” Cascone says.

Noting research alone would only take her so far, fashion student Miabella Courtney says she gained valuable insights working directly with Amelia. Together, they developed a fidget sensory hoodie that includes a hidden stress ball in the kangaroo pocket. Both the pocket and hood feature a silky textured fabric for sensory needs.

Amelia’s dad, Tito, says they sometimes struggle to find clothes that make Amelia feel comfortable. The Jefferson project allowed her to bring her dream designs to fruition. “It’s really cool to see her excitement and the designers’ excitement,” he says.

Parezo felt encouraged by every step of the design process, especially the collaboration and creativity.

“I told them how occupational therapy can be part of fashion,” she says. “They took that and listened to the stuff I like, and what I do every day and in my spare time. For example, one student designed a rain-resistant cover for pants that looks better than a big poncho. They made me feel comfortable and like my old self.”

For Parezo, fashion student Omar Gómez designed a cropped puffer jacket with a tailored seated fit, extended back coverage that avoids catching on her wheelchair, and lightweight insulation for warmth without underarm bulk.

“I learned to be inclusive and to take the step toward representation, you must have conversations with people from those communities,” Gómez says. “Before meeting Amanda, I had an idea of what direction I was taking for the class. However, by talking with her and understanding what she needed day to day, I went back to the drawing board. This project opened my eyes to a different side of the industry and to overlooked communities. It makes me inspired to continue my design journey.”

The clients found their way to the Diversity in Design course via various University connections, including Jefferson’s Center for Autism and Neurodiversity, which is helmed by Ross, who notes the course is an essential collaborative effort not only for clients but also for underserved populations.

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