A Vogue magazine. A cup of Starbucks coffee with a pink lipstick stain around the rim. Fabrics, mannequins, fashion sketches. This isn’t describing the desk of Anna Wintour or Miranda Priestly. It’s the desk of Mrs. Joelle Townsend, North Penn Family Consumer Sciences Department Chair and Clothing teacher. After twenty-seven years in the district, Townsend will be retiring from North Penn.

Though this will be Townsend’s final year teaching Clothing, Textiles, and Apparel Merchandising, and Advanced Clothing, her passion for fashion will never retire. The love for clothing she shares in classrooms now as a teacher are the same passions that have been with her since she was a student.

“When I was in middle school and high school, I was kind of lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. Sometimes, I still think I don’t know what I want to be. But, there was always some solace in reading that Vogue Magazine, and Marie Claire, and Teen Magazine. I was always so enthusiastic about the next edition, the next magazine to come.

“At the time, 90210 was on, and Melrose Place, and I was just like, this is the greatest stuff ever. I would see these young people who would be walking around in Richard Tyler suits, having briefcases and running the world, and I was just like, ‘I want to be that.’ I wanted to be Rachel Green on Friends, working for Ralph Lauren,” Townsend explained on where her love for the fashion industry originated.

“I loved everything about it. I love the art of fashion. I love the history of fashion. I love understanding why people wear what they wear based upon what’s going on in the world. I just think it’s fascinating,” Townsend continued.

After attending Jefferson University and obtaining a degree in Fashion Merchandising and Retail Management, Townsend dove into the fashion industry head-first, working for Joan Shepp and JCPenney in the Philadelphia area.

“I stayed [at JCPenney] for at least eleven years, and I started out as a visual merchandising person. I used to do windows when they had windows in department stores. I ended up being the Women’s Department Specialist Merchandiser for JCPenney’s, then I started onto a traveling group that would go and open up stores. It was during the time where JCPenney’s was literally opening up brand new stores all over the country, remodeling all the old ones; I was selected to be in that group of people to go travel. Eventually, I became a manager of a district, so I was doing that for a while. I opened up stores in Philadelphia, redid all those, and then, across the country.”

Although her career in fashion merchandising took her all around the world, Townsend gravitated back towards home.

“Eventually when I became the manager, I was moving a lot, and I didn’t want to anymore, really. My husband’s job was here, and I couldn’t exactly be living in a different state for 365 days, so we made the decision that I was not gonna be the one who keeps moving. In retail, in that type of job, if you don’t move and you stay, you don’t really excel. So, I decided to go back to teach,” Townsend explained.

Remembering her childhood enjoyment of Family and Consumer Sciences as a student, Townsend went back to school to experience the subject from another perspective: that of a teacher.

“It was scary as could be, because high schoolers are scary when you don’t hang out with them. It takes about, I’m going to say, a good five years of teaching until you pretty much are like, ‘Yep, okay, I know exactly what’s happening here, what to do.’ [Going from] working with adults to working with kids, working with students, children, it’s different,” Townsend said.

Despite its differences from her previous field, Townsend found the similarities that connected back to her roots in the fashion industry.

“With fashion, you’re always staying up with the trends, and you’re staying up with what’s happening, what’s hot, what’s in now. I think with teaching, you have to do the same thing. I have to know what you guys are saying, what your words mean, what’s hot, what you’re wearing. So, I think it really kind of coincides. Doing research and being almost a fashion historian when you’re doing windows and working with clothes and creating shops, and then working with students, you’re doing the same thing. 
You’re researching them as well. You build these bonds where people tell you what, you know, what’s going on, what’s happening, what’s hot, what’s not.”

In her teaching career, Townsend has passed down her understanding of the role fashion plays in society. In return, she hopes her students will find a space for their own happiness and passion in the subject.

“Think about everything that you are wearing right now. That came from somewhere in the world. Someone made that for you. Somebody thought about you when they designed it. Somebody created that whole look, and you saw that somewhere in a magazine, and you went, ‘I think I’d like something like that.’ That’s how you create yourself every day. That’s how I create myself every day. We find our own styles with that,” Townsend explained.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world. It doesn’t matter if you go into fashion, but you can find something about it that makes you happy. We color, we sketch, we make things. I give you the basics to know what to do. Sometime, somewhere, along your life, if you’re not happy, you know what? Maybe you were happy doing this. Maybe this is the thing that is gonna take you from unemployed to employed. And if anything, if nothing else, you know how to sew on a button.”

Reflecting on her career and what has made her most proud of her time at North Penn, Townsend immediately expressed her pride in her students.

“There are a lot of students that have really made me proud and have done such wonderful things. They are the most incredible human beings I have ever met. There’s so many awesome kids, and they still come back. They tell me when they get married, and they invite me to weddings and birthday parties, and all that stuff. Some of them do work in fashion, and some of them did work in fashion and don’t want to do it anymore. It’s just great to see where everybody ends up,” Townsend said.

Looking into the future, Townsend will be retiring to her new home in Mystic Island, New Jersey, and looks forward to a peaceful area and focusing on her life’s other passion of animal welfare.

“I’m a big proponent of rescue animals, and I’ve rescued five Dobermans and an American Staffordshire Terrier, which I have now. I’m probably going to foster and then probably get another one or two. I volunteer with One Love Rescue out of New Jersey, and I’ll probably be able to do a lot more help with that kind of thing,” Townsend explained.

Townsend also looks forward to the time she will get to spend with her husband in their new home together.

“I think my husband and I are just going to take this time to get our house together and just do some stuff that we haven’t been able to do. If you like clothing, you tend to like interior design as well, so that’s a passion that we both have together. We have similar tastes, so we don’t really conflict when it comes to that,” Townsend said.

In her last year of North Penn, Townsend extends thanks and gratitude to her fellow teachers in the Family and Consumer Sciences Department.

“Without them, I’m nothing,” Townsend concluded.