Professor finds footing in fashion
Andrea Bonner is dressed up for the first time in weeks.
For someone who embraces the beauty of putting on dresses and makeup, wearing sweats almost every day at home during the coronavirus pandemic has been frustrating, the Houston Community College fashion professor says. It’s been especially hard as she thinks about the future for her students.
What will life be like for them in the fashion world?
“I see so many college students with so much potential, and I want to help them be who they want to be,” said Bonner, who is also the chair of the college’s Consumer Arts and Sciences program, encompassing fashion design, fashion merchandising, culinary arts, pastry arts and hospitality administration. “The fashion industry will be completely different after we get through this. We have to help our students figure out their place in this new world.”
Bonner knows well what it’s like to find her footing in fashion.
A native of Floydada, a small town in West Texas, Bonner wanted to be a medical doctor from an early age. She was raised by her grandparents, J.P. and Iva Jewel Bonner, and spent the summers in Houston with her mother, Sandra Sims. She loved collecting fashion magazines and shopping for school clothes in Houston.
By late high school, Bonner realized she didn’t want to commit to “spending her life” in school to become a physician, so she earned a business degree from the University of North Texas in Denton. She worked for Kelsey-Seybold during the summers and transitioned into a career in health care marketing and sales after she graduated. Her health care jobs more than paid the bills but did little to fulfill her fashion desires.
So she started Style on Demand, a personal shopping and styling business, and took parttime jobs during the holidays with fashion retailers.
“I’m obsessed with clothes,” she said. “I feel like clothes give you an opportunity to show your personality. Some people really don’t know what to wear. For me, it’s euphoric to help people feel good by putting a look together that they wouldn’t normally wear.”
Bonner went on to serve as regional director for the Houston chapter of Fashion Group International, a professional fashion organization. She also worked as an assistant manager for jewelry designer Jay Landa, who is moving his Rice Village boutique to River Oaks. Bonner later taught fashion courses part time at HCC and produced fashion shows for nonprofit groups across Houston. After three years of teaching, she was hired full time at the college.
She’s found her passion in helping prepare students for the real world.
“A lot of fashion students don’t know what’s happening in the world of fashion. They think it’s all about posting pretty pictures on Instagram. But I’ve had several students go on to have successful careers in the industry.”
For now, courses are being taught online because of the cornavirus pandemic, she said, which has been an adjustment.
“Many of our fashion and culinary students don’t want to take courses online. That’s understandable, but our professors have done really well in transitioning those classes to online.”
In addition to HCC, Bonner has taught in the summer fashion program at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. Last year, she earned a master’s of professional studies degree in the business of fashion from
LIM College in New York.
Her style has remained consistent through the years. She loves dresses, kimono styles and is passionate about wearing and promoting local designers.
Bonner also admits she’s gotten smarter about what she wears.
“As sustainability becomes more of an issue, I’m really looking at quality over quantity,” Bonner said. “I’m concerned that clothes are filling our landfills. Studying and teaching fashion has made me make wiser choices about what I wear.”