Zac Posen On 5th

Finally, we can all afford some Zac Posen! Last night Zac launched his new lower priced line at Saks Fifth Avenue in NYC. The new line called Z Spoke (not crazy about the name, sounds like a new smart phone) is a women’s sportswear collection priced from $60 to $700. His goal was to make a line that is more accessible and affordable to the average woman than his runway collection. Part of that effort is in expanding his size range to include a size 16. “It’s a dream of my life to be able to make a collection that can work for so many different kinds of women,” he told New York Magazine. “This is about dressing America.” It is nice to see a designer embracing a diverse customer base, unlike our recent issues with Eileen Fisher who feels the opposite way as you can read here. Not to mention Zac’s design ability and taste level have not been watered down at all for this collection. What do you think; will you become a fan of his new line?

Life as a Corporate Fashion Designer

Today we have another fascinating interview for you. As usual we bring you a side of fashion not usually covered by mainstream media and certainly not covered during our recent fashion week. This fashion designer (who prefers to remain anonymous) has been working in the industry for about 12 years and has been responsible for many of the big brands you see at your local mall, department store, and even mass-merchandisers. Her range of experiences makes her the perfect person to share her thoughts on working as a designer in corporate America. At the moment she works for a mid-sized company overseeing two women’s brands and a huge private label business, her team of four assistants, associates and graphic designers do about 42 million dollars of goods a year.

1) Do you feel your formal fashion education helped prepare you for working in the industry?
Yes, definitely. I attended a traditional four-year university and got my Bachelor’s degree with a major in apparel design. I was very concerned that because I hadn’t attended Parsons or FIT I would struggle finding work or even be unqualified. Surprisingly, that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. In many ways I was better prepared because the grads from those schools were so focused on couture and illustrating that they were not well rounded. I had four year of fashion like them plus cad, graphic, and Adobe classes. At that time those schools were not even teaching any computer design, so I actually had a leg up. Plus, since I have a University degree if I choose to leave fashion, I believe it gives me more options as far as other careers or a graduate school.

2) You moved here after graduation from the Midwest, do you like living in NYC, and are you glad you made the move?
Absolutely, this is where fashion is in the US. The city itself is inspiring and this particular neighborhood is so full of fashion professionals and resources. There is nowhere else you get that in such a concentrated area. The amount of opportunity is amazing here and I think if I had never tried, I would’ve always regretted it.

3) What one piece of advice, would you give to someone wanting to start a career in fashion?
Make sure you really want it, be prepared to work hard for long hours and low pay in the beginning, and get an internship. The internship is a great way to get your foot in the door, especially for your first job, after that your work history and portfolio speak for themselves. I would also say, move if you need to. For recent grads, this is before you have kids, mortgages, medical bills etc, this may be the one time in your life to pick up and move to a big city or different country and not have much to lose. Oops, I guess that is a lot more than one thing.

4) You have worked for some major apparel companies in the garment center, what would like to see companies improve on?
Quality of life for their employees, better pay for everyone but salespeople, who frankly are already overpaid, and most of all I’d love to see Human Resource departments be mandatory for apparel companies and benefits greatly improved. My last company had so many incompetent people who got away with it, while qualified people got frustrated and quit, yet the owner never even knew what was going on until employee exit interviews. There was no HR, no way to notify anyone at the executive level what was going on. The owners of many mid to large apparel companies are so disconnected; they may breeze in and out of the office a few times a week/month and not even know who their employees are. I realize this is the case in many industries and at many large companies and that is why they have HR departments. We need that too!

5) What is you day-to-day schedule like as a designer working for a large corporation?
Well, I think that would surprise most people. I would say being a senior level designer is 85% business and 15% creative.

I spend my mornings following up emails from overseas factories. Seeing where they stand, what questions they have, what problems need to be solved that day etc. Then mid-morning my samples usually arrive. The assistants go through and check/spec them and any problem are brought to me. Any samples for production and fittings are giving to me for review as well. Then I usually meet with my team and review sketches they have and give them any design direction I prepared the night before.

Then I will meet with the sales team and hear the selling reports, what’s doing well in stores, what’s not etc. They will let me now what their buyers want more of, and what styles they are looking for etc. This is probably the most stressful part of the day. Lots of yelling by salespeople of what designs they want to see, how they hate this idea but want that, why one of them believes her request is more urgent then another’s, and how they all want stuff designed and sent to the factory asap.

After this I take an associate designer with me to fit any samples that need to be fit with the technical designer and patternmaker. Then I begin to work on the sales requests and come up with a game plan. At this point I try to eat lunch while working, as it’s usually around 2-3pm. I then pass on the sales info to my assistants and start them working on new sketches and techpacks to be sent tonight. Usually a fabric supplier or trend forecaster will stop in to meet with me, which I try to get done quickly. And often around 5pm-6pm the VP or big boss will want a meeting, have a question, or need a sample review, before they leave for the day.

Then after 6pm it gets quiet with only the design and technical teams left and I can get some work done. I start checking and reviewing my team’s sketches and techpacks, making my comments and corrections as needed. Then I will start finding design inspiration for tomorrow and doing some of my own sketching and techpacking. Finally, I will follow up on all emails and go through any budget, expense, or employee paperwork that needs to be done. Finally I will head home around 9pm-10pm!

6) What do you wish people would understand about working in the fashion industry?
How freaking hard it is! It’s a business, its manufacturing; it’s much more than style and shopping. Fashion is hard work but can be incredibly rewarding as well. I wish people, students especially, would realize it is serious business. Having interns who show up thinking it is all going to be styling outfits and going on shop trips, and whine when they have to track packages or get stuck measure dozens of pre-production samples, makes me crazy! Yes, there is fabulousity, yes, there are shop trips to Europe but they are not the bulk of the business and they don’t come easily.

Fashion’s Fried Chicken!

Fried chicken (yum) conjures up images of scarfing down KFC during our late night college days. It certainly doesn’t fit into New York’s intense foodie scene, does it? And fried chicken is one thing you’d never see designers, and other industry professionals in the Garment Center scarfing down at lunch-time, is it? Well, it is now. Thanks to the opening of BonChon Chicken on 38th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

Anybody familiar with Korean fried chicken knows how delicious it is, but also, that it’s far different from Southern American fried chicken. The frying process is different, there are a variety of sauces and flavors, and we think it is lighter and crispier than its American cousin. One of our favorite things abut Korean fried chicken is the variety of flavors, you have a choice of sauces and can even mix and match, like Spicy, Soy, and Garlic. We definitely recommend trying this more fashionable way to indulge your next fried chicken craving.

Now beware this is still fried chicken, so this is not a light lunch and BonChon is a chain so don’t expect fine dining. If you are a real foodie and like Korean fired chicken we have to recommend Unidentified Flying Chicken in Jackson Heights Queens, it is the BEST! One other random recommendation for our readers. Right next door and above BonChon, is Cozy Nails, one of the best places in the Garment Center to get a quick mani-pedi. As long as you don’t go on a Friday, they can get you in and out during your lunch hour and they do a lovely job.

NYFW & the Garment Center

Fashion Week has come to an end and we thought we’d share some of our favorites with you. Of course, we always have to show some love to those designers who support the local NYC Garment Center. Especially those who work tirelessly on the Save the Garment Center campaign like Nannette Lepore. Her show was inspired by renaissance themes and filled with feminine jewel toned frocks. We especially liked all her use of yummy velvet!

We also adore Anna Sui who made it clear how unhappy she was that Fashion Week was moving out of the Garment Center. In her show we saw the usual wild pairings of colors, prints, patterns and textures in Sui’s fantastic trademark hippie-glam style. We also loved the more unexpected addition of the elegant retro flapper dresses.

We have a new obsession with Chris Benz, he is another local designer who believes, “our responsibility is to support the domestic garment industry.” We found this excellent video of him discussing the issue here:

Throughout the week many designers have made an effort to support local manufacturing and business and we would like to see that trend continue.

So what else did we like from fashion week? Well there was a lot actually, but here are some favs, with images courtesy of NY Mag.

Badgley Mischka J Mendel Catherine Malandrino

Diane Von Furstenberg Carolina Herrera Marchesa

Fashion Bloggers Take Fashion Week

In case you haven’t heard, fashion bloggers are the new “it” crowd. Of course with our recent fame comes the inevitable backlash. The now infamous Independent article slamming fashion bloggers as, “little more than mouthpieces for fashion brands” got destroyed in the blogesphere. Not only is this untrue, but we find it particularly annoying how often fashion blogs are lumped together into one narrow definition. Fashion bloggers share a huge variety of experiences and information with their readers. From the young girl posting what she wore to school, to a professional stylists sharing behind the scenes info at a high-end fashion shoot, to a stylish mom sharing tips on how to keep on trend while raising a family, blogs are as varied as the people who write them. Now in the midst of New York Fashion Week, the bloggers whose focuses are covering designers, runway reporting, and excellent photography are shining in the fashion blogesphere and to perhaps the dismay of mainstream media, outshining them as well! We think it is partially this diversity of purpose, which sets fashion blogs ahead of traditional fashion media. Not to mention the Independent’s implication that bloggers are the ones that have “sold out” is ludicrous. Magazines have a clear cut intent to sell product and increase revenue, bloggers do not. In fact, many bloggers make little or no money from their blogs. And frankly, many fashion blogs are not trying to sell you a damn thing.

As many of our regular readers are aware, this blog is written from the perspective of people working behind the scenes in the fashion and garment industry. We cover issues of domestic production, fashion school, women in the workplace, and saving the garment center, far more often then shopping or trends. And we pretty much never directly address the issue of blogging. However, this week we feel we must give a shout-out to our fellow fashion bloggers who have made such a large impact on the fashion industry, in such a small amount time. In just a few short years bloggers have creating a new media. But to us, it seems like even more than that. We often cover the various professions and careers one can have in the fashion industry from colorist to patternmaker to designer. Recently we realized that fashion blogger can be added to that list. Like many fashion industry professions, bloggers are predominately underpaid females with a passion for fashion. The fashion blogger as a career is hard to define, but many have grown their own blogs into careers or have become professional bloggers for larger media outlets.

This week, aside from infiltrating many of the fashion shows at Bryant Park, fashion bloggers have flocked to the IFB conference. If nothing else the success of IFB (Independent Fashion Bloggers) led by wonder woman Jennine Tam, clearly shows the growth of this new outlet. The all day conference covering issues like marketing, SEO, writing, advertising, FTC and much more was quickly sold out. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before these topics become curriculum in a fashion blogger major at Parsons? Aside from the tents, this was the event to be at during fashion week. For anyone looking to begin a fashion blog or expand the one they have, please follow this link to the IFB site for tons of info, plus excerpts from the conference should be up soon. This fashion week has made clear that fashion blogging is a growing medium of influence and importance to the fashion industry. So cheers to all of us for that!

Olympic Spirit?

In case you have any spare time during fashion week, you may have noticed the Winter Olympics are underway. Whether or not you enjoy watching these events, you no doubt are aware of the patriotism it evokes. This year that is particularly true for our neighbors to the north, who on Sunday finally won their 1st Canadian Gold Medal at home. It is a time where every country is on display and we all do our best to promote and portray what is best about our nation. In the opening ceremonies many countries went with native costume or apparel that represented their image, i.e. Bermuda’s team paraded into the cold Vancouver air, sporting red Bermuda shorts.

So what did the American team wear? They were sporting the all-American Ralph Lauren classic look. The winter puffer jackets in Navy and turtle necks were all very traditional Americana. And of course there was the American flag patch and official team USA appliqué. As a matter of fact Ralph Lauren is the Official Outfitter of the 2010 US Olympic Team. So we wondered, are the clothes actually American? Is the apparel made in the USA? They must be made domestically right? The Olympic gear couldn’t be outsourced to a third world country, could it? Well, unfortunately it can and it is!

If you check out RL website under the Olympic section you can get all the details and the products are clearly listed as “Imported.” Of course they are smart enough not to publish, “Made in China” but still we know what imported means and it’s not from Canada. But just to be sure, we contacted Ralph Lauren and inquired about the Men’s Opening Ceremony Team USA down jacket and asked where it was made. Guess what the answer was? Bangladesh! Not only that, but you can get your own for the low, low, “imported” price of $350. Really, what were they thinking? Seriously, the Olympics would never pick Nissan as the Official car of the Olympics (it’s Chevy) or Heineken as the official beer (it’s Budweiser) so why is the Official apparel made in Bangladesh?