I went in here to try and match color samples for filing pre-fall 2012 colors. Pre-fall is another name for "Summer" I learned. I had always assumed "Pre-fall" meant a sneak peak into the full fall line, however pre-fall makes sense I guess. But why can't it just be summer?
Thursday night I also went to a company event hosted at the 315 Bowery boutique location, which is also the former location of CBGB for "Thursday Night Live" which happens at the first thursday of every month. Basically the entire store is cleared out and the merchandise is stored in the basement, and the whole place is turned back into a music venue. The band Caveman played; they're a group of NYC locals. It was a good show, and I got to see some of my fellow interns and designers!
On Friday June 3rd I was a bit tired from the night before but I was still able to make it to work 15 minutes early as usual. The best thing about Fridays - it's a half day! Or what NYC calls "Summer Fridays" which is pretty common all around the city.
My task today was to research trends for the Star USA label, specifically knitwear trends. My mentor for the day David showed me a series of images of Detroit (where John Varvatos grew up) and said I should find trends that could have been inspired by those images. The phrase Decaying Splendor was thrown around, and I spent all day looking up different menswear blogs and style blogs. This was one of the learning goals that I wanted to meet while at this internship - the brand image development process.
On Saturday June 4th I attended an FSF event in Central Park, where I was able to mingle with fellow FSF scholars and other alumni of the scholarship. It was nice getting to know where everyone else was working and hearing their experiences at their internships. After the picnic, a group of us went to the Metropolitan Museum to see the Alexander McQueen Exhibit, which we had to wait in an hour long line for - but it was certainly worth the wait.
I also took the time to admire some of the architecture of the church around the block from my dorm.
On Sunday June 5th, I got to bond with my room mates. We went to brunch then wandered to Soho where I kept falling in love with beaded, tribal patterned skirts - all of which admittedly exceeded my bank account, but are still pretty to dream about.
On Monday June 6th, I was given my first graphic design task. This design task was yet again Detroit themed, but this time I had phrases that I had to transcribe into graphics for t-shirts. I found out that I'm not allowed to take many pictures of what I'm doing because it would let out confidential designs for the upcoming pre-fall line. But I can say that by 3pm my design juices were on low because I created so many images.
For the latter part of the day I helped another intern steam some samples for photo shoots. Generally when someone says "I steamed clothes" this means that they tried to make wrinkled clothes into smooth crisp looking clothes - well this is NOT what I did. For the first time I learned how to "anti-steam" I had to create wrinkles in perfectly pressed garments. My mentor for the day said to "Make it look like it's been at the bottom of his closet for a few days". The idea is that you steam the garment, and while its still damp from the steam, you crinkle it up into a ball then release it, then ta-da! you have a perfectly wrinkled shirt! The whole time I was doing this I just kept feeling like I was doing something bad - but alas, they were satisfied!
On Tuesday June 7th I had a very full day that started with preparing some techpacks for the technical designers. These were the first tech samples for the books, so I had to make a ton of labels and use a heavy duty hole puncher for the technical sketches which were blown up to actual size. When I was done with the techpacks, I helped the technical designers clear out some of their old samples and prepare them for the upcoming sample sale. I basically had to remove all of the marking stickers, chalk marks and safety pins.
Then I had a very exciting turn in the day when they announced that a live fit model was coming in and John, himself, would be up to observe and make adjustments to garment samples. John came in at 5:30 and we all stayed until after 7:30. It was well worth the extra hour and half of staying late to see him at work. The technical designer lead the fitting and made the adjustments, and John gave his input on everything. One thing I did notice is that the fit model has a lot of say in the how the garment turns out. They ask him all sorts of questions while he's wearing it - "Can you fit your hand in that pocket?" "Would you prefer the pocket where it is or would you want it moved?" "Do you like that collar or would you rather have a clasp there?" All the while, the tech designer is chalk marking seams and comparing her spec sheets to the garment in front over her and making adjustments with pins. The tiniest details matter - and to them 1/4 of an inch is a HUGE difference. They used some interesting terms in altering; for the first hour I was totally confused when they kept saying things that sounded like "Move that button down one and half seams" or " adjust the collar half a seam". I finally quietly asked one of the tech designers next to mean what they meant and to my chagrin he scribbled out "cm's = centimeters" "OH I said cm's... I've been hearing them saying seams" He just smiled like a ton of people make that mistake.
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