William Perrine

William's academic interests include social justice in the apparel industry, sustainable consumption of apparel products, fair trade and the international aspects of the fashion industry.  Additionally, William is involved with the Fashion/Tech Hack-a-thon, the Fashion School's Stoll industrial knitting machines and TechStyleLab.  

He currently teaches computer applications for retailing, social justice in the apparel industry, Photoshop/Illustrator and apparel in the global economy. He is the faculty advisor for the Kent State University Fashion Student's Organization, the largest and oldest fashion group on campus that it has been active since the first year the Fashion School opened in 1983.  FSO is one of the largest student groups at Kent State University. 

Before coming to Kent State, William taught at Western Michigan University, Iowa State University, Kalamazoo Valley Community College and the Izmir University of Economics in Izmir, Turkey.  He has done retail consulting, managed several Limited Inc. stores, worked as a bridal sales representative based out of the Chicago Apparel Center and has held district and national level visual merchandising and management positions with Sears. 

William's degrees are all in fashion. He conducted dissertation research at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, on Generation Y's attitudes towards Fair Trade products and investigated their religiosity as a potential predictor of purchasing fair trade products. His master's degree is from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan where he researched the store attribute preferences of college-aged Turkish consumers. His undergraduate degree is from Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois. 

Presentations/Seminars

• International Federation of Fashion Technology Institutes (IFFTI) Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2017
• Inter-Religious Task Force (IRTF) Annual Social Justice Teach-In 2015 – present
• Invited Speaker, John Carroll University Department of Theology, 2013
• Invited Panel Moderator, Massillon Museum Presents Another Look at the New Look, panel discussion with Project Runway^TMdesigners, 2012
• Invited Panel member Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University screening and discussion of Bill Cunningham New Yorkdocumentary, 2012

Media

• National Public Radio's Around Noon Program. Regular Panel Member on Seasonal Fashion Call-in Program. 2008-2012.
• Channel 19 WOIO.  Cheap Fashion Segment, 2016
• The Old Farmer’s Almanac, Fashion Forecast Report for 2015 and 2016 issues.
• Crain’s Cleveland Business, Interviewed about the role and profitability of large urban flea markets, December, 2014
• The Cost of Fashion TV show, Akron Public Television, 2012
• WEWS News Channel 5. Segment on career dressing for less during hard economic times, 2008

Retail Consulting

• Jimmy Key Apparel Stores. Visual and Store Merchandising. Izmir, Turkey, 2003
• The Wine Shop.Human Resources and Store Merchandising. Ames, Iowa, 2005