About Me

Elaine Polvinen, M.F.A., Professor, Fashion Textile Technology has been on extended medical leave from the Virtual Fashion Technology blog since the fall of 2012. In her absence this blog is being maintained by Mr. Bud Robinson who is Chief Marketing Officer of AM4U Inc. http://www.am4u.com and watch New AM4U Videos

. See link to Bud’s book: #Why I Came Back + links

“Bud” Robinson

“Bud” Robinson is currently CMO of Apparel Made for You Inc. (AM4U) a company that was born as a consortium of seasoned apparel technology advisers to Cal Poly Pomona’s Apparel Merchandising & Management College (AMM), the only accredited 4 year college of its type west of the Mississippi. Demand Manufacturing: AM4U (Apparel Made 4 You)

Bud began his career in Procter & Gamble’s marketing program where in 5 years he became Print Media Manager. From there he became the West Coast Sales Manager for Better Homes & Gardens magazine. Bud was recruited into the Advertising Agency side and spent the next 5 years In Media and Account Management with 2 leading agencies supervising several national accounts, including Dow Chemical’s Texize, Miles Laboratories’ Alka Seltzer, Clorox, and Levi Strauss & Co (LS&Co)
He then joined LS&Co as Director of Advertising and Public Relations, and in ten years progressed to General Manager of Levi’s Europe, President of Levi Strauss International, and Vice President of Worldwide Marketing. During that time LS&Co grew from $100 million of cowboy pants in the West to $8.5 billion, and became the world’s largest apparel company and an Icon of youthful rebellion

Bud left Levi’s to become Executive Vice President of The Gap Stores Inc., a company he help to start (see ‘Falling into The Gap’ on page 41 of Bud’s book),

Then Bud spent the next 10 years in the Active Sportswear field as President of Aspen Skiwear, Hang Ten Surf wear, and Catalina Swimwear.

In addition to his marketing and general management experience, Bud has been responsible for company start-ups and acquisitions in the U.S and in over 25 foreign countries.

Bud holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Duke University, did M.B.A. studies at Xavier University, and has completed senior management programs at the American Management Association and at IBM’s Consumer Products Presidential Program..

See link to Bud’s book:Why I Came Back + links

email : Bud Robinson (brobinson@am4u.com)

My Website

I have been teaching Fashion/Textile Apparel Design in higher education since 1990. My undergraduate educational background is in textile/fiber design. I began to merge traditional and digital textile techniques during my M.F.A. research at R.I.T in 87-89′. Since that point I have been on a steadfast journey first to transfer all my traditional techniques to digital interpretation and then to continually retool and develop new coursework to reflect the transformational changes relating to global technology integration that is taking place in all aspects of the fashion/textile industries. I established this blog to document the transition and expansion from 2D traditional to 2D Digital to 3D virtual for apparel textile product design, development and retailing.

If you are an educator and/or industry research professional and have a 2D/3D apparel/textile product development prototype project that either you or your student(s) created and would like to share with readers of this blog, please contact me at polvinem@buffalostate.edu

(aka: Finn1 FLintlock)

“How Avatars are Transforming Product Development, Marketing, Retailing and Education.”