Internship at Dollie & Me: Week 2 - Keeping Busy

Day 3: 2/7/13

Another great day at the office. The days challenges were met simply. Dollie & Me is having a mini fashion show at the Javits center this coming Sunday, and I was asked to organize and account for all the garments that will be featured in the show. I checked sizes, steamed and pressed some of the wrinklier items, and swift tacked the Doll outfits to the hangers. This took most of the day, but it wasn't difficult or stressful, though the steamer burned me a couple times (steam is hot people...steam is hot...beware).

I also took a trip out to the garment district with Erica to pick up a couple fabrics for the samples.

After everything was organized I went onto pasting the paper prints to the garment samples to be sent out for production. I also glitter painted where its supposed to be glittered, which is always so fun! This is done manually because it's too time consuming to have every single sample screen-printed so we do the print samples with sticky paper. 

On Sunday, I will be going to Javits to help out with the fashion show. Should be fun, I hope everything goes smoothly! I hope all the little models are sweet and cooperative!

Day 4: 2/8/13

It was treacherous getting into the office! A snowstorm is now in full force and it wasn't fun getting into the city with that. I managed to get to the office at about 9:40 am, which was a little late but it's okay because I stayed a little later, until 1:30 pm opposed to 12. It was a very busy day, I did a lot in a very short amount of time. I packed all the garments for the show in a rolling travel case that was getting picked up in the afternoon, covering each garment with plastics, and packing shoes (including little doll shoes) and other random thingies. It took awhile to figure out the best way to get everything in and fitting, but I managed to do it.

After I did that I quickly photocopied the samples that were going to be sent out today for their records. I wanted to make sure everything was finished before I had left, thus staying later, which is never a problem to me. I don't like leaving tasks unfinished, and every time I have time managed well enough that everything gets done at a convenient time for me as well as being efficient for everyone else. 

Internship at Dollie & Me: Week 1 - A Simple Start

So last week I began my first true internship at the Girl's wear company, Dollie & Me. It's a branch of Kahn Lucas and Lancaster which does girls apparel for major department stores such as Kohls, Macy's, JcPenney, Walmart, and so on. Dollie & Me however is a little different, because not only is it cute clothing for little girls, but the matching outfits for their doll! 

Dollie & Me recently acquired the licence to Marie Alexander Doll Company, in which they make companion dolls, similar to that of American Girl, for a much better and more affordable price point. 

Day 1: 1/31/2013

When I interviewed, I mentioned specifically that I want to dabble mainly in the field of Technical Design, meaning tech packs, specs, CADs, and WebPDM. My wishes were in fact granted.

Jason, the Executive Vice President, told me the morning I arrived in the office that I would be working closely with Erica and Adira, who are in charge of Technical Design at Dollie & Me. They were excited, as they are quite busy and sure could use the assistance, and I, being the eager and willing to learn intern, was equally.

On the first day I was given a working area, introduced to the various members of the office, and then jumped right into work. It was surprising how time flew by as I completed my tasks. I was instructed to photocopy samples for future references for their tech books. They make all their samples in house, and they only make one of each, so things disappear. It's important to have backup, and thus the photocopying. 

It was tedious, but I didn't mind doing it. Someone has to do it don't they? It seemed like a good starter task. I basically did that for the entire time I was in the office that Thursday, which was 9am - 6pm. They were surprised I was there that long! I didn't find the day challenging or frustrating, and everyone in the office was nice and accommodating to me. 

Day 2: 2/1/2013

This was an exciting day. I got on their web interface, Blue Cherry, which is a program sort of like WebPDM. I got log-on info and I was good to go. Indira gave me a very nice and simple to understand run-through of how the program worked for what I would need to do today, which is load in the CAD images from Adobe Illustrator into the Blue Cherry technical files - which encompass all the specs, trims, fabrics, sizing, and everything that goes into factory producing a garment. 

I sized, cropped, and edited all the CAD flats images for importing into Blue Cherry. Unfortunately I wasn't granted saving rights for my user login, but I was able to load in all the images and created image folders on the interface. I was so happy to be doing what I've always wanted to on a professional level. 

I can't wait to learn more and do more in the Technical Design field. I want to be able to write entire tech packs, not just load in images. Hopefully it wont be long until I do.

Practicum at Pastourelle: Day 9 - Finale

And sooner than I could have ever imagined, the last day at Pastourelle had approached. It seemed to have gone by rather quickly. 

It was our final meeting and run through with Susan, Fran, and Julia, and I must say it couldn't have been better. They were all very proud of the hard work that we had done and praised us continuously. They made comments on our presentations and went over slight things to tweak or modify. Overall there wasn't too much for us to correct.

I drew Marionette dolls for the "Marionette Masquerade" line, which were a major hit, and coincidentally harkened toward their current showroom window holiday display that also had marionettes in it! I must have been doing something right, haha!

For "Clara's Christmas Dream" I drew little ballerina girls, appropriate I must say.

They really loved my illustrations and I hope they love them even more once they see them colored on Wednesday in the presentation. 

I hope my presentation will go smoothly, I'm a little nervous, but I'm just going to go fourth and show what I've done, I'm extremely proud of all of it and I need to let that show.

All in all, I really enjoyed doing this project, being at Pastourelle, and gaining many new skills in Illustrator this semester. 

Pastourelle as a company could not have been more of a perfect fit for me and my aesthetics. As of right now I really dream of working there in the future if it was ever possible. They are a growing company, and though their space is limited now, I only wish them all the more success and growth so that one day I could be a part of the magic. I look at their dresses and I even wish they came in my size!

I really feel like I just "get it" with them, if that makes any sense. It just clicks with me. I knew that from the first day I ever went there as a class trip with the Children's Wear block. Every dress I see, my eyes just light up and I just understand what they are all about. 

I wonder what the future holds for me. I really hope somehow that in the end, I end up there. I will diligently keep in contact with them in hopes of it.

Until another time...

- Aria

Practicum at Pastourelle: Day 8 - Shopping the market, a day with Julia.

We had a bit of a change in pace! Neither Fran nor Susan were present int he office that day so Julia planned for us to get some market time in the stores to teach us a bit on her side of things, Merchandising. We headed out and went to Macys as our first stop, JcPenneys as our second, and finished off with Lord and Taylor, all the stores that Pastourelle items hang in from 3 different tiers of the market; the middle market, the lower end market, and the higher end market. Marmellata is sold in Macys and JcPenneys while Pippa and Julie is sold in Lord and Taylor. 

Not only is Julia a very nice and helpful person, she is very insightful and really knows a lot about the market. She asked us to make observations on the merchandising strengths and weaknesses of the different stores. If I had to rank them...

#1 LORD AND TAYLOR

I would rank Lord and Taylor number one in terms of sales floor neatness and the fair presentation of the different brands. There is a clear quality difference between the items in Lord and Taylor and the other stores clothing. Also of course the price tickets reflect that. 

#2 MACYS

Macy's in the middle, because they seem to oversaturate the sales floor with too many pieces and there is no clear branding for each individual dress company, but there is still an equal representation of the different brands nonetheless.  

#3 JCPENNEYS

By far the worst ranking. All the dresses were littered in with some other random items that didn't compliment them at all. All the holiday dresses were shoved in a random corner in a very displeasing way. I'd say they were really failing in terms of the way things were merchandised. Nothing good about them at all. 

It's apparent that the market level does reflect the quality of the merchandising. However, it varies from store to store I'm sure. 

It was quite a nice time shopping the stores and giving Julia our feedback and observations She seemed pleased with the things we realized and observed. As a designer, and for me personally, it's important to understand every level of the fashion industry.

At around 12pm we returned to the office and reviewed our work with Julia for the first time. She hadn't been there for every step of the design process so she thought she'd get her chance to look at our progress. 

She gave us the merchandising perspective, and told us to take what she said with a grain of salt as she doesn't see things in the same way a designer would. Personally I felt that her insight was even more valuable, because I think in the end, a compromise between the designer and the merchandiser is what makes for a successful product sale. Actually it's an overall team effort (Designer, Merchandiser, Sales).

Julia gave us her input, combing through each of our finished lines, looking at each garment one by one. We both needed some minor changes and alterations to things such as color and silhouette. I changed my color story slightly for my "Clara's Christmas Dream" line for Marmellata, as Julia said the colors were reading very spring like and some of the dresses looked like Easter dresses rather than Christmas dresses - something I was quite afraid of with such a pastel color palette. I tweaked a bit, changing some of the pastel blues to a plum purple, which is still appropriate for the subject and theme (Sugar Plum Faires anyone?) 

As of right now, I think my stronger and more concise collection is the Pippa and Julie "Marionette Masquerade" line, as the colors reflect more of a Christmas and decadent mood and the designs are much more elaborate and fanciful, but it still makes sense as it is the more high end line. 

Ideally, I want to design more from a technical and marketing perspective, so I will be heeding many of Julia's advices. 

Until next time~ 

I hope to have my figures done next weekend and my presentation finalized by the week after that. Time is running short, but I have to pull together and make it work somehow. I'm narrowing down my rendered figures to 3 - 4 per collection as I want to focus more on the technical aspect of the project and also because time is fleeting.

Practicum at Pastourelle: Day 7 - Marketing, Sales, and Merchandising

So after a tumultuous past week, the Hurricane disrupting and upturning everyone, it was finally time to start getting back on track after a lot of confusion and extreme difficulty.

We arrived at the office, that post-election day, a little unsure what to expect. We got there to a mostly quiet office, Susan still in China, and Fran wasn't around yet either. We ran into some confusion because since Susan was away, the relay message that we would be coming in that week got a bit lost in translation. But no matter, it turned out to be a new learning experience instead.

VP of Sales, Glen, spoke with Fran on the phone, and since she was going to be a little late (post election win excitement), he decided he would get a chance to speak with us, as he hadn't had a chance to really give his input on what he does since we've been at the company.

So Glen gave us an overview of what he does at Pastourelle. He used to work for Kahn Lucas, but decided to come to Pastourelle because he was taken by Fran's integrity, design vision, and her skill at running a company. He seems very happy and confident with his career direction and the prosperity the company has had even in these tough economic times.

He stressed to us the importance to staying true to your values ad a company, never skimping on quality for quantity, always trying to find a way to make a garment that is what you want as a designer as well as living up to the expectations of the customer at the same time. It's about the balance between cost effectiveness and putting out a product that you can stick by and are proud of selling. 

Sometimes, he said, you need to make financial sacrifices along the way, losing out a bit here and there, having to settle with a smaller salary at times, but if you are dedicated to the products you put out there, then it's worth it. 

His advice was great, I highly value it and agreed wholeheartedly. It was a nice change to hear a bit of the sales and marketing aspect of the company.

Then Glen gave us a challenge, and it was to take the items from the new Spring 2013 samples and then decide which items would be for Pippa and Julie and which ones would be for Marmellata. Piece by piece we carefully contemplated the qualities that go into placing certain garments into the line for each price point and customer.

We did rather well actually!

We had placed the items we believed were for Pippa and Julie on the hanging wall. Glen came in as we were going through them and he seemed impressed with our choices. Then Fran came in to see what we came up with and in the end we'd only missed 2 items (out of like say 40 pieces on the rack!) I call that smarts! 

We explained why we chose what we chose; Pippa items being more sophisticated, more unique and creative in design, more details, higher quality fabrications and finishing details, as well as a less mainstream color palette consisting of navy, pale peaches, ivories, greens, and intricate printed patterns - not just your basic stripes, dots, and florals, but batiks, geometrics, and watercolors. 

I was happy that we both have soaked in a lot in terms of the company aesthetics and branding the separate lines. I'm glad because I feel like I'm really listening, and that in the real working world I can apply these skills.

So the project continues, theres still quite a bit of work to be done. I'll share everything in class next week. Until then~