Katherine Roulston - Apparel Summer Internship Part 3

My last month was a whirlwind of activity leading up to Accessories the Show in New York City. We needed to change how we transported our display products to and from Virginia to New York, and there was a lot of trial and error. We have two large black crates, and at first the idea was to create a foamboard frame to place each neck inside its cubby. I was tasked with measuring, cutting, and piecing this frame together, so for a few days I was working with a tape measure and a box cutter – I calculated how much foam we would need for two frames, how many cuts we needed to make and how far along on each “slat” this needed to be done.

But this sounded like a lot of work, so it was decided there had to be an easier way. We looked into putting each neck into a carton (small box) inside the containers, so I had to figure out the best size for the cartons and how to orient them in order to transport 70 necks. There was no best fit, and again we scrapped the idea. Finally, Steph decided to build a 6 foot crate with drawers for all the display products – t-bars, triple t-bars, large, medium, and small necks as well as the miscellaneous items like lamps that needed to go to ATS as well. I figured out the best way to cut the remaining foam board to put foam frames in each drawer.

The next week I was painting and sanding for the display tables. Once the parts for six small tables were dry, we had to figure out how best to fit them into other cartons to transport them to the show. A lot of this didn’t make total sense to me until we arrived at ATS and had to unpack and build the booth – then everything clicked.

 

I sat in on my last product development meeting. There was a pair of teardrop earrings that came in moody, fall colorways that needed a name. Kelly (product development) and Steph decided they could be called the “Katherine” earring if I “wouldn’t mind.” Um, of course I didn’t mind. I mind so little that now I’ll have to go back to Fornash and buy them.

It wasn’t all work at Fornash, in fact there was even drama on the high seas on our boat trip. One day we left work early to go on a boat trip from the Pentagon Lagoon to Georgetown. Food and drinks and even paddleboards were provided, and it was nice to get to know everyone outside of work. The team was so inclusive and friendly – I'm going to miss everyone. There was a police boat presence on the outing; since apparently you cant have a photoshoot on the bow while you're underway (but mostly I think the lonely police boater wanted a chance to talk to our model).

I had been waiting all summer to attend ATS (hard to believe, but I was even more excited than learning to use the silhouette machine). We left early by bus for New York on a Saturday, and I had no idea what I was in for. The girls do all of the assembly to make the booth look so beautiful, and it takes hours of pretty physical labor. There was climbing, ratcheting, screwing, stacking, building – and that was just for the tables and walls, not even the display jewelry. Figuring out the best way to merchandise the expansive Fornash collection took some brainpower. By the end of setup, we had a table of new merchandise, as well as new merchandise that was “glitzy and glammy.” Along the walls we had earring trays; spade jewelry was together in a corner; scarves, cardigans, and ponchos hung on a bar; and enamel bracelets had their own rack. The booth was bright orange and navy, and just looked like fun.

ATS is held in the Javits Convention Center near the Lincoln Tunnel, in a large geometric building that looked like it was made of glass. Javits was hosting three different shows at the time: Fame, Moda, and ATS. The show was organized in rows and rows of booths, with a snack and lunch bar in the back. All day Ericka, Kelly, and I hung out in the booth, greeting buyers and answering any questions they had, while pitching as many products as possible. Such a sales-oriented position was new to me, and at first I just watched and tried to be helpful without getting in the way. This worked until we had three buyers at once and I had to finally start selling. I wasn’t great but I wasn’t terrible either – on the third and final day, Tuesday, I was doing much, much better. We even beat our sales goal!

On my last days of work I said goodbye to the vinyl machine by monogramming a lot. I even did some PR work with Mutterick McCall Patterns, since one of their directors really likes Fornash jewelry. He asked for some product to use in their FW14-15 shoot, so I chose some pieces to send based on the colors and concepts he gave us.

I had a great summer with Fornash. ATS was the culmination of everything I had learned with them, and an incredible experience. The jargon and concepts we learned in Sourcing, Fashion Retail Concepts, Clothing and People, Consumer Behavior, Apparel Product Development, and Fashion Presentation Techniques were all at a minimum touched on during my internship, and many concepts were even necessary to have prior knowledge of. I felt prepared by my professors for the work I did, and feel more prepared to be a professional in this industry after graduation as a result of the summer.

 

Thanks again to everyone at Fornash for all of your help, you made my internship amazing.

 

 

 

 

Sophia Henry - Apparel Summer Internship Part 3

It’s no secret that social media has completely changed our everyday lives.  That includes how you are buying and selling clothing.  Behind every successful boutique is their Instagram or Facebook, which is used to not only show locals what’s in the store, but also makes the boutique accessible to people all over the country.  At The Cheeky Bean we are constantly using social media to facilitate purchases.  We post all new merchandise on our Instagram, as well as put together outfits.  I have worked entire days where the majority of our sales come from women who have seen an outfit posted to Instagram and call to order—especially out of state.  Without social media, our customer base would be half the size, and thanks to technology we are able to sell clothing to women all over the country.

      

Julie Thiessen - Apparel Summer Internship Part 3

Knowledge and Skills:                          

Throughout my internship, the activities and experiences that I participated in allowed me to gain all sorts of knowledge and skills. I was also required to attend training programs on various micro-strategy planning tools, and IPR selling strategy tools. In addition, I also attended training classes on retail math and excel and the Kmart program, Workbench. Sears also has a merchant learning platform called Learn Your Way which I was required to utilize and take courses. The courses I took were: Shop Your Way, Legal Advertising Guidelines for Marketing, Introduction to the Item Maintenance Application, Excel Macros, Excel Pivot Tables, Excel V-Lookups, and Global Compliance.

I was given intern goals at the beginning of my internship. These were basically one on one experiences that I was scheduled through my outlook calendar with my Head Buyer. During these periods I was taught the basics about the aspects of apparel buying. Either my Head Buyer or the Assistant Buyer would usually be the ones teaching me.

Overall, I thought that this field study was an incredible learning experience. I learned almost every aspect of apparel buying and was given a chance to experience the processes hands on. I learned which parts that I enjoy and which parts that I do not. I know what I need to do to improve my knowledge and skills relating to the field.

Skills:                                                                                    

Advertising

Best Sells
IPR Selling
Monday Morning Reporting
Our Customer
MSP’s
Buying Sheet
Orders/Wings
Vendor Negotiating
AMC Pricing
Season Forecasting
Sample Management
Item Management
Markdown Strategies
Market Trends

Ending Notes:

I think that this academic year will provide me with more personal direction to which field of apparel that I wish to pursue. With more exposure in my classes and more projects to work on, by the end of the year I will be able to make a decision whether apparel buying is the field I wish to enter, or apparel product development. Going into this summer I applied to both Buying and Apparel Product Development internships. I was not sure which direction I wanted to aim towards and hoped that the internship would help with my decision. In terms of my future career, I am still undecided.

I was able to learn a lot about the apparel industry and career opportunities through my interviews with current employees and past graduates of the six month BAP (Buyer apprentice) program. I learned about the process that most employees went through in order to get to their current jobs. They offered tips and suggestions to getting the dream job I might want. In general, I learned that each retail corporation does their apparel buying a little differently. A lot of employees at Sears have come from other department stores or companies. I learned that doing a training program for buying carries a lot of weight when applying for full time positions. Also, each company uses different programs so it is crucial to have strong analytical and technological skills.

In regards to my experience with the company, I do not believe that Sears was a good fit for me.  Moving forward, I plan on applying to full-time jobs both in apparel buying and product development.

 

 

Katherin Roulston - Apparel Summer Internship Part 2

I remember negotiating my start and end dates and thinking that twelve weeks would take forever – but not at all. I have four weeks left and this internship and summer are flying.

There’s a new intern from Marymount working with me. She had no idea Tech had the apparel program it does and asked me if I wanted to study fashion why I didn’t attend Marymount. I had to laugh and ask her the same thing – I guess to each their own (and in my own opinion, Tech).

I finally learned to monogram using the silhouette cameo vinyl machine! I have been waiting for this day since I started – the girls thought my enthusiasm was sarcastic, and I had to clarify that no, the vinyl machine is some seriously thrilling technology. So thrilling in fact, that the department should get one!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monogramming aside, I’ve been pulling and pitching a lot of jewelry looks lately. I was asked to pull for our Resort 2015 catalog and given a Lilly lookbook as inspiration. That was fulfilling; rather than merchandising and putting tortoise with tortoise and styles with similar styles, this was more whimsical. The second jewelry pulling-and-pairing task was at the request of the Fornash buyers in Atlanta. They thought that our arm candy sets done in school colors would sell well, so the interns had to figure out how many bracelets and which styles would make a good set. We then pitched and edited our ideas, then bagged the sets for sale.  

I’m much more QuickBooks proficient at this point, I can enter items into Point of Sale (POS) on the retail floor, and know how to change an order or backorder in the system. I learned how to process backorders after I call the customers about them, so I can complete more of the process. There is a long checklist of how exactly to do it (everything at Fornash is well labeled and stored in a bin), which I prefer because I would hate to get into the system and mess it all up!

I’ve worked the retail floor less lately, there’s been so much to do in the back. It’s high tradeshow season, so there have been samples to pull and tag and edits to be made from the last show. I’ve done more merchandising when I do work retail, which is rewarding. It’s nice to see something you’ve tweaked and edited for hours be well received by customers, who stop outside the store and get drawn in by the display that you curated.

It’s childish but my favorite part of working with fashion jewelry is when new product comes in. A big box (of three) shows up with Chinese characters on it, excessively taped and bound. The import forms are on the outside in a clear pouch, and you can’t cut through them when opening the box. The jewelry has to be counted and quality checked, then put into it’s “home” in wholesale. Right away, one of each colorway will go out to the “test kitchen” retail floor to see how it sells. Lately, the new products have been immensely popular with a wide age range – a grandmother ran, and I mean ran, into the store to buy one of the most blingy and fabulous necklaces we make. The next day when we restocked, a husband came in and bought it for his wife’s birthday. This guy was thankful we were in his local mall, because he mentioned something about “last minute gift” and “forgot”.

Each week I’ve been assigned to take inventory of the ceramic trays we sell. We carry a small and a large option in five colorways, and then a small option of two different styles, a diamond and pearl detail in the center. Trays have to be counted, and checked against how many orders there are to fill in QuickBooks. The difference must be ordered, with some extra to hold in inventory. In addition, if any trays are already “pulled” or set aside to fill an order, they and the order aren’t counted in the inventory process.

Before the show in Atlanta begins, Steph wants to call our sales leads to try to drum up business, offer them a discount code for their first order, and see if the company will be attending the tradeshow. Essentially I have a script and have to cold call different stores. I thought I’d hate this, but it isn’t so bad. After I make the call and get my information, I enter it into my spreadsheet I have to send a follow-up email to everyone I called. It certainly keeps an intern busy.

I want to say what my average day is like, but really there isn’t one. For me, that’s a positive.

 

 

 

 

 

Sophia Henry - Apparel Summer Internship Part 2

What You See....     

 

Everyone knows that first impressions can make or break you. The same is true for every store you step into. Right away you can get a sense of understanding for what you’re about to deal with—organized, messy, inviting, closed off. You must always keep in mind what exactly you’re communicating to customers in both a verbal and nonverbal way. The single most important nonverbal way of communication I’ve learned throughout my summer at The Cheeky Bean is merchandising. It’s essential to have a cohesive theme with each rack. At The Cheeky Bean we tend to keep the clothing in the same color family—blues and greens, pinks and reds, greys, blacks and whites. It can become a headache to shoppers to deal with multiple colors, patterns, and lengths when trying to shop.

            We also keep mannequins in sets of three, all of which wear coordinating outfits. It’s a great way for us to show customers new merchandise and how to wear it. We even keep our jewelry tables organized by color and designer, while keeping overall symmetry on each table. At the end of the day, what you see is what you get.

 

 

                                                 





Julie Thiessen - Summer Internship Part 2

Daily Responsibilities:                                                         

Throughout the internship, our assistant buyer was promoted to associate buyer for petites. The lack of an assistant buyer allowed me to take on quite a bit of responsibility that otherwise would not have been available. This was a unique situation and was not foreseen. Taking on these responsibilities added a lot of activities to my daily routine.

      1.       Checking and responding to emails.

2.       Completing Intern “outputs”: these are complex activities that require you to answer several questions regarding your experience. These included: Bi-Weekly internship Ups and Downs, Getting to know your product, Senior Speaker Series, Vendor Meetings, Store Experience, Competitive Shopping, Ad Shopping, Job Shadowing: the Buying Team, Divisional Merchandising Manager, Inventory Manager, Inventory Planner/Analyst, Marketing Planning Manager, attending Training Sessions: Retail Math Review, Alex, Excel, SPRS, Workbench, Impact, and Reporting Tools.

3.       Entering pricing for each upcoming week, for each Laura Scott item, into a system called AdPlan.

4.       Entering the sales information for each previous week into the Monday Morning Report. I was responsible for only the advertised items at first, and eventually learned how to access the information for each Laura Scott item. This required accessing sales reporting tools, excel documents, calculating totals to find the Top 7 performing clothing programs for the corresponding week.

5.       Accessing and printing a multitude of sales and performance documents when requested.

6.       Assisting buying team in line reviews, Open to buy, Style outs, and Best/Worst sellers review meetings.

7.       Assisting with the advertising process for weekly circulars; set-up, obtains samples, ad proofing, subsidy collection, and post analysis recap.

8.       Create Line Item Comparative Analysis final project based on competitive analysis, store visits, comparing sales, turn productivity for each style, opportunities, SWOT analysis, styling/pricing comparison, market analysis, sales history, and future trend analysis.

9.       Working with our Inventory Manager and Planning team to obtain sales, financial and performance information for my final project.

    10.   Preparing a presentation on my final project for the Senior leadership team of         
            Merchandising, Divisional Merchandising Manager, SVP President and Vice
            President, Program Manager, Human Resources Managers, and Buyer Apprentices.

        11. Assisting with sample management projects. 

 

Katherin Roulston - Apparel Summer Internship Part 1

My third week interning with Fornash, a fashion jewelry wholesaler, just ended. The company has one flagship retail store, which seems kind of like a test kitchen for new products. We are located in Arlington, Virginia in the Ballston Common Mall. The mall has the strangest mix of stores, and I hear young, hip Arlington moms come in with friends and exclaim  “it’s simply the best store in the mall and I just need to shop here to keep them in business!”

But we aren’t in the mall for the retail dollars; we’re here for the wholesale space in the back, right alongside the office. And maybe there is a good sweetgreen down the street. And a Panera Bread in the mall, by a Starbucks, and maybe there is a candy store above us; but we’re definitely here for the large stockroom. We have rows and rows of inventory and I still can’t remember the names and colors or placement of some of it (not for lack of trying). The collection is expansive and new products are introduced all the time, rather than by season. Although at first I wasn’t the happiest to be labeling and restocking my first few days, it does help me learn the SKUs and product names. I don’t think I can contribute here without knowing the basics.

The SKUs here are easy to understand. Rather than a string of numbers, these are a series of letters. For example, a red enamel bracelet with gold anchors would be: “BR-“ for bracelet, then the collection or style name “ANCH-“ for anchor, followed by the color option “GLD/RED.”

The team and the owner, Steph, are mostly Hokies, and some of the girls graduated from my department. It’s been easy to talk about the classes and professors that we all remember (That sewing lab - is it still a windowless sweatshop? How was the fashion show this year?) But the first few days were a little awkward for me since the full staff and Steph were at tradeshows. By the beginning of my second week it got much better, and I got my own Fornash email to use and an ongoing project with SimplySoles, a website where we list our products. I will liaise with one of their people for the entirety of my internship and complete the necessary order fulfillment and customer service for SimplySoles customers who buy Fornash from their website.

There’s another girl who finished her internship two days ago. It was great to have her there when I started, since she showed me around and helped me acclimate. Lizzie’s attending Tech in the fall actually, so we had a lot to talk about. Lately the two of us were mostly sitting at the retail desk in the store, labeling product and doing other smaller projects. Aside from labeling, I’ve done a little bit of merchandising and learned how to ring up customers, taken inventory of the popular SKUs, checked voicemail, gotten the mail, and opened the store.

Ava, the marketing director, did give me a good project on the first day. I had to list new product on Shoptiques, so first I had to check what products we already had listed. Then I made a list of products I deemed appropriate for a 25-40 year old demographic and had Ava approve it. Once that was done, I found TIF files of the products and had to resize them using Photoshop and save them again, and finally upload them onto Shoptiques and write a little blurb about the product.

At the beginning of my second week, we were featured on “Jill’s Steals and Deals” on the Today Show! As a result there were more retail and wholesale orders to fill, and we got more Instagram and Facebook followers, too. I’ve been picking the Fornash Friday winners every Monday morning; the winner gets a free item that we posted on Facebook the previous Friday. Just comment on the picture with your favorite color (and have a cute profile picture) - anyone can participate. I’ve been doing a lot of the Instagram photos as well, and it’s a better part of my day when I’m assigned to those kinds of projects.

Something I like less than Instagramming is calling customers about their back orders. Not that I hate it, but I'm almost convinced no one likes talking on the phone to strangers. Actually, I am convinced, since I got some of the team to admit they don’t love it either. It’s comforting that it’s not just an inexperienced intern thing. I’m also slowly learning to use QuickBooks. Ass I call the customers I have to make their requested changes in the QuickBooks system to keep track.

A typical day for me now involves liaising with SimplySoles after getting the mail and checking the voicemail, opening the store and completing the cash out, working the retail floor in the morning, and doing any projects that come up in the back and restocking wholesale in the afternoon. But the projects are all diverse, from taking inventory to trends research, which I enjoy.

But today has been the least typical day. Yesterday I pulled samples and older items for a sample sale in the garden of a store called the Preppy Pink Pony in McLean, Virginia. Tomorrow Meghan will set up shop there and sell some discounted Fornash as PPP has a blowout, “we’re moving” sale. Today I got to leave work early and drive over to help Meghan there. So far I’ve only had a few DC incidents (first, taking the metro to the all-kinds-of-wrong stop before work) and today “getting my car stolen”.

I drove to the mall for the first time today. I parked in the garage, and walked inside like a normal human being. My car is loaded with all my stuff, since today I drove to Woodstock (home) after work. Clothing, shoes, a laptop, a diet coke stash… all the valuables in my car today. I walked out to get in the car and drive to the PPP sale. I walked to where it should have been. I walked past where it should have been. I walked around the level where it should have been. I ran around the level where it should have been.

My stuff! My car! My ride home! My job! And my stupid mistake, I was on the wrong level. The car was fine. But I was so frazzled the rest of the drive that I missed my turn for the highway twice and arrived late to the sample sale.

It’s been an interesting three weeks, so far. I’ve seen Fornash work with retail and wholesale markups, price out logistics of transporting product by sea versus by air, discuss LCL and lead time on shipping by sea (they prefer air), and discuss the HTS and import paperwork (they don’t fill out much of it, their vendors do). My point is, that even three weeks in they’ve talked about a lot of things touched on in my courses.

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

Sophia Henry - Apparel Summer Internship Part 1

The Cheeky Bean
Charlotte, NC

Location, Location, Location.......



When it comes to having your own boutique, where you are matters. The location of your store determines what types of clothing you will carry, price ranges, competition, foot traffic, and overall success. I’ve been able to see this first hand by working at both our Ballantyne Village and South Park locations. Ballantyne Village is full of restaurants and is located across the street from a large office park and next to a country club. Our two largest types of women that come into this store are either businesswomen or housewives. Due to this, we have plenty of garments that could easily be incorporated into a professional wardrobe, as well as flirty dresses, comfortable sweat suits, and trendy maxi dresses, jumpsuits and blouses that would appeal to housewives shopping for both themselves and their daughters. In South Park, our clientele are those of higher income brackets. We carry higher end brands mixed in with some inexpensive basics to create the perfect blended wardrobe.

 

 

 



Juli Thiessen - Apparel Summer Internship Part 1

I worked in the Sears Apparel Offices in San Francisco, CA. My internship was a Buyer Apprentice Internship where I worked directly with a buying team within Sears Holdings. This Sears office building was opened in 2004 and serves as the apparel buying offices for both Sears and Kmart.  I was assigned to specifically intern with Sears Ready to Wear. There were found interns total, two with Kmart and two with Sears. Working for the Sears Ready to Wear department I worked with the Women’s Brand, Laura Scott. This was a 10 week program consisting of training classes, apparel buying topic lessons, hands-on learning, job shadowing and interviewing, daily tasks, and personal responsibilities within the company.

 

This field study was a full time commitment and I worked eight hours a day. Therefore, I was able to learn and experience a tremendous amount of activates centered on apparel buying, marketing, finance, apparel production, and other aspects of the business. My internship partnered me with the Head Buyer for the Laura Scott label, along with the rest of the buying team. On a daily basis I would work on my final project and complete tasks that the buying team needed assistance with. I would also shadow the buying team and accompany them in all of their meetings.