August 12- August 16

My last week of my internship was extremely busy. I was helping Holly Erickson create new limited edition boards and that took up most of my time during the week.

I did not attend any meetings besides when I re-met with the product development team and Janet to go over the fit and style guide again to make sure they agreed with all of the changes.

We had an internship "graduation" where we had a chance to voice what we liked and didn't like about the internship. We also found out if we got accepted into the Executive Management Training program.

I am really excited to announce that I have been offered a full time position with the product development team of Chico's FAS. I will be moving to Florida officially in February. It is such a huge opportunity and I look forward to starting my career with an amazing company.

August 5-August 9

Projects

This week I completed the Fit Guide and will be presenting it to the PD team and Janet. Any corrections that they suggest I will change and resubmit to them next week.

I also worked with Sarah on trend and concept for the upcoming year 2015. I helped her choose the correct color swatches and then labeled them all and distributed them throughout the Foundations and Apparel teams. We also updated all of the teams color boards, and started to go over what the themes were going to be.


Meetings

This week I attended a touch base with Holly. Holly and Janet really want me to come back once I graduate and work for Soma. I would first have to do the EMT program (Executive management training) and then Holly and Janet are going to pull for me to get placed back with Soma. With the EMT program it is all based on the head count of each company, and how many positions HR has to fill. The best part about the EMT program is that even if there is not a position open for you yet, you are still getting full salary while you are waiting.

I attended an interview event this week, this was to apply for the EMT program. Each intern who wanted to interview had three different interviews, two with the department you are interested in, and one with someone from HR. These interviews were very conversational and I think that I did very well.

There was a Product development meeting this week to go over all of the fabric and print issues. We also looked at new faux fur to add to some of our limited edition collections. Laurie really liked the idea.


Presentations

This week was very busy with final internship presentations. Last week all of the 11 intern groups presented in front of about 30 people, and the top HR people chose the top three groups to present to Dave Dyer (CEO) and Sara Stensrud (VP of HR). My group was one of the top groups, so this week we spent a lot of time watching ourselves present from the first presentation to HR and worked on what needed to be fixed. Knowing that we were going to be presenting to Dave Dyer is a huge accomplishment but also nerve racking.

To help prepare for our presentations, Kelsey and I met with DTC and ecommerce to go over what was do-able in a timely manner for our suggestions for the Soma website. This was very helpful, and the team really liked all of our suggestions. The best part about our project is that every change we suggested to be changed had research to back it up.

Holly and Janet wanted me and one other girl from my group to also present to Laurie Van Brunt. This was done in a very personal setting with a little less than 10 people. This presentation was more informal but Laurie was so impressed, she even emailed us the next day expressing how impressed she was and how great our presentation skills were, and that she loved our ideas for the Soma website.

July 29- August 2

Projects

This week I continued to make changes to the Limited Edition concept boards. I started designing the new Holiday boards and was conversing with the vendors to make changes on the limited edition fabric we have chosen. The concept boards were also presented to the VP's of the foundations side as well as the lounge and sleepwear side. Callout's were made by the foundations team to see if the scale of our embroidery could be reduced because the scale as of now would not work well on panties.

I have also been communicating for the past couple weeks with vendors on styles that have been dropped before they have even gone through production. I requested to do this as part of my project for back at school, and my team thought that it was a great way for me to really get a hands on experience of how the Product development process works. I now have had these samples made and they are for the January and February corsets. The vendors do not know that these samples will not be used but for my learning only I have had these samples produced with my own minor tweaks on print, trim, color and notion choices.

Presentation

This week all of the intern groups presented their SWOT analysis projects. My group came up with enhancing the direct to consumer experience through improving the Soma website. Many of the changes we made were aesthetic but also navigational improvements.

During the week we did a few mock presentations for different people in Soma. Each mock presentation we were given feedback. Our final presentation was in front of about 30 people and were people from all of Chico's FAS brands and positions. The main judges of our presentations were three recruiters from HR.

The recruiters then had to choose 3 of the 10 groups to present to Chico's FAS president, David Dyer. To my excitement my group was chosen as one of the best groups!
So the upcoming week will be a lot of preparation and feedback from others who saw our presentation to make it the best it can be to present to David Dyer and other executives.

Meetings

I attended one of the " Most Amazing Places to Work" Lunch and Learn activities. The e-commerce teams came in and presented all of the information about Soma's social media outlets. All facts were presented and ways of improving each network was discussed. The presentation was very interesting and many exciting facts were shared.

MAPS meeting I attended and all of the cross function teams came to discuss any issues that were going on and what can be done to fix these issues.

I also attended the Lounge and Sleepwear PI Debrief. This was held by HR and each employee was given their results from their PI debrief. We learned what type of person each employee was and what we can do as a team to best support their needs. It was crazy to see how much everyone's PI's were like them. This was a great way to really get to know your teams. I found it really interesting that the cross functional teams were very similar by position and their type of PI.

This week I was asked to interview for the Executive Management Trainee Program which is for current college graduates. The HR team set up time with us to go over what the interview process will be like and to answer any questions about the EMT program that we may have. I am really excited to interview for this.

July 22- July 26

Meetings

To start off the week I had a touch base with Janet, VP of Merchandising & Product development. She gave me the meetings she wanted me to attend with her this week and projects she has for me to do. Since Janet is very busy, in many cases I will be attending things for her such as the lunch and learn and then letting her know any information or news that is important

I had my P.I. debrief, which is meeting with HR to talk about my results from the personality test I took when I applied. She went over what everything meant and then gave me the results and summary to keep for the future.

I met with Sara Stensrud, VP of HR, at a roundtable meet and greet. She talked about how she got to where she is now, and all of the interns she did that she didn’t like, and ultimately ended up in HR. She said it took her 20 years to figure out what exactly she wanted to do when she “grew up”. She was very personable and was eager to get to know all of us that attended.

I attended two meetings to present the concept boards I created. I took feedback from all that attended and tweaked the garments to what the foundations team decided on doing for their sketches. This was a really great learning experience and I was really happy how everyone responded to the boards.

The Holiday Mailer Meeting was a very interesting meeting, this was to go over the Holiday Mailer. The marketing team presented their sketched spreads and then presented the product that will be shown. Laurie Van Brunt (Soma President) made corrections and changes to what she would like to see on each spread.

The Stellar Sellers Meeting was the largest meeting I have attended yet. The entire company of Soma was in this meeting. The merchants of each category talked about the sales and why certain product did not sell and why they thought others were better, and what they are going to do for next year differently. Laurie lead the meeting and asked questions and made comments about what she has seen with sales and what needs to be different.

Projects

This week the majority of my time was spent creating concept boards for the Limited Edition lines for August, September, October, November and December months. I had to take images from our trend and concept director and decide which inspirational photos really captured the theme and concept we were trying to convey. I did not have much direction so I just created boards that were not too over the top but that definitely were intriguing to the viewer. These boards are a new way to show Laurie Van Brunt the direction in which the limited edition collections are going, and to visually show her what the garments will look like without having the samples. I sketched the fabrics and then also sketched the garments to match the artsy models on the boards. This has been my favorite project.

Also this week I researched what is going on in Social media and created an outline to give to Janet so that she could inform others in new directions Soma can go in Social media.

Next week is our Intern SWOT analysis presentation, so a lot of time this week has been spent preparing our presentation. I am in charge of all of the Photoshop parts of our project which is updating the Soma website to what we think the new changes should be, based on research. I enjoyed being in charge of the creative side of the project as well as leading the direction in which our team wants to go with the research. I was able to use my knowledge from the courses I have taken in the APDMT program and to explain to my team the importance of having facts to back up the changes you would like to make.

Corset Walk Through

This week I went to one of the corset walk through at a local mall. The corset is run by the marketing team and they present to all of the teams at Soma what the “September” corset will look like. They completely remove the entire product currently in the store and replace the product with samples that each team has received for September. Laurie then goes through and makes comments about what she likes and doesn’t like. The highlight of the corset was that every team was able to see the new panty riser tables that have been purchased so that the customer can easily shop the panty tables. This new table holds double of what the risers could before and for the most part all of the product carried will be able to fit in every size on the new risers.

Vendor Meeting

Soma is a very small company employee wise, so every position has a lot of hats to manage. This being said I sometimes take the place of some of the PD team and go into meetings without them. I attended a vendor meeting where the vendor presented all of the new lace and trims to me and the foundation team. We then went through and marked the fabrics we liked and then took all of those samples to the limited edition meetings to present to the rest of our teams. What I love about Soma is that they allow me as an intern to have an opinion, and that they trust my taste to attend these meetings alone.  

July 15- July 19

Touch base

This week I met with one of our associate merchants, Carrie. She went over what her tasks are on a weekly basis. She goes through each full price item and adds the information that the planners send to her on Monday morning of the week’s prior sales. She makes sure that all formulas are correct and are pulling from the right excel sheet. She then goes through and marks down items still left from the month of May and then highlights any product that is meeting the APS (Average unit per store & Average unit per store plan). She enters the sell through percentage for each garment and then also what the life to date sell through is since the garment hit the store floors. Once all of these excel sheets are done the information is then sent to Janet our VP who will then present the information to other executives.

Color Matching Project

This week I had to help Sarah, the senior manager of trend and color, with a color standard ordering process. Sarah has gone through her research and found which colors she likes for the Fall and Winter 2014 collection. I then had to go to the color studio and look through Pantone standards and CSI standards finding the best match possible. Once I was done finding the correct color standard for each color trend, I then had to type an order form to send to our purchasing team to make sure that we receive a color standard of each color choice that I had chosen. Each color standard costs about $7-$15, depending on which ever company we chose the standard from.

Sketching Project

Since my team has seen that I am proficient in Adobe suite, they have given me extra projects. My newest project is taking the laces/trims that were selected for Fall and Winter 2014 and drawing them in Illustrator. These sketches will then be used to add to silhouettes that the PD team chooses for the season. Most of Soma’s teams are very visual so it is important to show the best representation of each garment before the samples are received to get the concept across.

Since my supervisor liked the sketches that I have done, I now am in charge of making concept boards for August, September, October & November limited edition lines. These will be used to better portray to Soma’s President Laurie Van Brunt, what we want for these limited edition lines. The concept boards will be of a woman wearing the silhouettes chosen with the correct laces/trims, along with a picture that best captures that month’s trend.

SWOT Analysis Project

As an intern we have a group project, our team is working on revamping the Soma website because it is not very easy to navigate or to see all the product that one may want to search for. This is a problem due to the fact that the target customer of Soma is not Tech-savvy as it is and so the website itself should be simplified. I am in charge of taking everyone’s changes and recreating the site on Adobe Photoshop. I also have put myself in charge of making sure that any change that is made has some scholarly research done to support this change. We will be presenting our project in front of executives throughout Chico’s FAS.

Meetings

Some meetings I attended this week were a vendor meeting with one of our biggest manufacturers, a line turnover meeting, a meeting with a vendor who supplies embroidery fabric to the Apparel and foundations of Soma, and a CAD approval meeting.

The vendor meeting was for us to see all of the bralettes out on the market and for the lounge team to see all the options that they have for their bralette in the upcoming seasons.

The line turnover meeting was a chance for the executives of Soma to see what will be sold for March and April 2014. Each category presents their line boards and the prints were presented. Laurie made comments about what changes she would like to see in prints and silhouettes.

The meeting with the Embroidery manufacturer was really neat to see. The company is based in Romania and China. The company presented us with their newest embroidery and Aimee and I chose the embroidery that we liked best for the limited edition sleepwear line. The company then takes our choices and scans the barcode on the embroidery, which is a way to “check-out” the embroidery.

The CAD approval meeting was for the majority of Soma apparel and foundation teams. The CAD prints for May, June and July were presented and it was mainly to see if the colors chosen are unique enough and if one color is not presented too many times.

Classroom Work

This week HR had a classroom lecture  on networking and resume building, this has been my favorite classroom meeting so far, and I feel it was very beneficial to my learning. HR went over how they select candidates and the process that they go through. We did a few activities looking at resumes that HR has received and we made changes to make them each better.

July 8- July 12

Shadowing the Vice President

This past week I got to shadow the Vice President of Merchandising and Product Development of Soma, Janet. Janet was the one who came to me and asked me to do so and I feel very privileged to have done so.

First Janet walked me through was she does in the morning and then I attended a couple meetings with her and executives of the company.

I later attended the cross functional team meetings, where each team discusses issues or pros that they have found in the past week.

Janet has asked me to do a weekly report on the Baazarvoice, which is just going over the customer’s reviews and developing a report of trends that have been voiced.

Intern Program

Since I am involved in the Intern program at Chico’s FAS, we have a group[ project with five interns, which is a SWOT Analysis. Our team has decided to revamp Soma Intimates’ website because there are a lot of things that are lacking. During the week I put together a PowerPoint to help my team to understand the direction in which we need to go to present the information.

We have been assigned a team leader of someone in the Chico’s FAS company to help us along the way, during the week we had a meeting to discuss our project and to add any ideas that she saw fit.

Projects

This week I continued to redo the Soma Fit Guide to look more like White House| Black Markets. I also worked on updating the Master sample guide with Dija on the technical design team, and updated any information that the vendors sent about the new fabrics we sourced for the limited edition fabrics for August-November.

Meetings

I attended several meetings this week including the design review, mini stellar sellers and print approval.

The design review was a chance for Product development to present their upcoming lines for May, June and July. This is where Janet (VP) and the merchants have a chance to see the ideas and to make any comments that they see necessary.

The Mini Stellar Sellers is a meeting where all of the garments in stores for May and June are presented. The merchants go through each garment and explain what worked, what didn’t work, and how they will improve for the next seasons to come.

The print approval meeting was for Lounge and Dresses. The Product development teams for these presented the prints that they chose for the May, June and July seasons to the CAD, Trend and Color, and Product development teams. Each team voiced their opinions of what they liked and didn’t like and made changes based on what the Merchants line plans called for. This meeting took a long time to complete because May and June’s prints did not really portray the themes that Sarah (Trend and Color) researched for the concepts of these months.

EMT

At Chico’s FAS they have a program called Emerging Management Trainees. This is what just recent graduates do before they start their career at Chico’s FAS. Soma Apparel is receiving a new EMT merchant and Janet had me be the person to show her around and introduce her to everyone.  It was a chance for myself to look back and see what I really have learned being here for 6 weeks.

July 1st- July 5th

Projects

This week I mainly worked on projects that have been given to me throughout my internship. Majority of the company was off due to the holiday and this is when personal time off is used each year.

One of the projects I continued to work on is for the technical design team and this is updating their spec sheets and Web PDM database. I was given a list of silhouettes to sketch and then I had to add the specific measurements and the unique specifications for each garment using Adobe illustrator. Once I finished all of that I then took the black and white sketch and created an excel spreadsheet to use as a master guide. This master guide will have all of the garment’s descriptions, sketch, measurements, and vendor information. This master guide will be used for the TD, PD & Planning teams ease of knowing which garment is which.

Once I completed all I could in that project I then started on a project given by the Senior Executive for the Creative design & PD team, Holly Erickson. This project consists of communicating with the vendors. In the past week we had a meeting choosing which trims and laces would fit the theme for the March/April collections. Holly presented which ones she liked best and then foundations and dressy sleep collaborated to come up with the best trim.

My job was then to scan each trim/lace into the computer and then email the pictures along with questions about the actual trim so that I could update our excel sheet to communicate with all the teams the cost and information. I also asked the vendors for additional color ways and fabrics that would go along with our upcoming themes. The vendors seem to be very quick with their responses and sourced additional fabrics very quickly.

My other project given to me by Holly was to update the competitive shopping guide. I first researched all the companies I was given and wrote down which categories that specific company fit (active, dressy sleep, casual sleep, etc.). Once I got all the information needed, I then created a clickable excel sheet that can be filtered and searched by whatever means the person searching needs. I had over 300 companies with data researched in this sheet. This was very time consuming, but in the end it turned out very presentable and professional, much better than before.  

Fittings

I attended fit sessions during this week. There was a problem with the vendor. The vendor was not doing all of the corrections that TD sent to them from the first fit session so then the sourcing team sent out an email telling the vendor that this is no longer acceptable and that the garment sample sent will no longer be fit unless the sample meets all the requested changes.

VP Touch Base

I then had a touch base with Janet Jack who is the VP of Product Development and Merchandising. She went over her tasks and the direction in which she took to get to the position she is in now. Janet is the one who came up with the idea of not having a position for a designer. She believes that the practices are best using the product development as the designer as well, since the silhouettes do not change much. She believes that it is best to have one president who sees everything “one eye” this way the same goal is achieved.  Janet would like me to shadow her with all of the executives in the upcoming week.

Supervisor

This week started off with my head supervisor Holly Erickson, creative director of the product development team and technical design. We went over the projects I had been working on for her while she was away in LA. I presented the competitive shopping guide that I revised and organized for easy use and then presented my ideas of how the Standard Fit Guide can be changed to look more organized like White House| Black Markets.

Holly then gave me direction to start the Standard Fit Guide. I will be designing the basic body and then drawing each different type of garment by category onto the basic body. I am really excited to do this project because it is a guide that every department uses and it helps allow each team to develop product that is to the standard lengths and it will be an easy guide to know which style is being talked about.

I then helped Holly go through the sample room and pull garments that fit the Trend Concept for the Summer 2014 collection, and then organized each pull by category that fit that silhouette or print. This sample rack was then presented to the product development team so that each area of PD knew the direction in which the next season was heading and to take inspiration from.

Another project that I will be helping Holly with is creating a map of LA and other areas and highlighting which stores are competitive shopping and describe each type of area so that when the teams travel to pull samples it is clearly addressed where to shop.

Senior of Innovation

I had a touch base with Glyn who is our Senior of innovation for the foundation side of Soma. He gave me a lot of career advice and then talked about his specific department and role.

When it comes to your career it is important to get as much exposure as possible, find your niche, and be able to know each area of the business.

Glyn described how Soma began. A lady by the name of Verna Gibson saw that her target market was being ignored . At the age that she was the body issues were not being addressed by the large lingerie companies such as Victoria's Secret. At first Soma was Soma by Chico's but then that was dropped because the company felt as though only the Chico's customers were catered to. It is now Soma Intimates.

Glyn then told me about the Innovation process (information I will bring back for the Functional Design class). First there is the brainstorming, one always has a frame of where they want to go but you must go outside this process but a lot of times for a company that is too expensive to do. If one deviates too much with a new idea there are risks such as loss of a profit. Glyn explained everyone wants newness but really everything comes from a different idea that was already produced.

While no product is very unique and a company like Soma cannot stray too far from what they already know works and sells as a garment one can change the type of knit/weave, change the type of finish/dye/print, different yarns can be combined to make different fabric, the color may change, the notions can change, and at the end of that process that is how "newness" or uniqueness comes about for a product.

It is important to realize that at the end of the day everyone in this company is a retailer, we get paid if people buy, we may feel as though we are detached from the front line stores but in reality if no one buys then we do not get paid.

After brainstorming is ideation. Ideation is a frame of mind, one must keep looking at things in a new way. An example of this is the people who made the Swiffer. The men sat hours upon hours observing people using a mop, trying to figure out how not to clean using the dirty water, and at the end of trying many fabrics and observing and ideating, the Swiffer came about; they kept looking at ordinary things (the mop) and thought of a new way to modernize the mop.

When it comes to ideation it is important to be passionate, very optimistic, look at the glass half full, take failure as a learning curve and move on from it, and be very curious to the extreme.

Glyn then showed me an innovative bra mold that he has been developing, but I promised that I would not disclose the information to anyone (but the idea is very cool, and extremely modern).

Dress Embroidery

My favorite project I have been assigned thus far is designing embroidery for one of Soma's top selling dresses from last season. In order to do this I researched the competitors to see what smocking and embroidery were trending on the market. Once I pulled from the competitors I then pulled ideas from the trend and concept book that Sarah Cullen created for the Summer 2014 collection. The dress I am working on will be apart of the March & April 2014 collection.

I then took my ideas and drew the dress on Illustrator. From there I started sketching my ideas and placing each idea onto the dress cad. Once I was done I showed Jenny in PD and she liked all of my ideas. I then presented the ideas in the Concept meeting to the head of our department.

To move forward with my ideas I will be working with the vendors from start to finish to get the embroidery I choose to be manufactured for the upcoming season. This is really exciting and it will be a huge learning experience to really get an idea of how each garment is produced.

Projects

Each department has been asked to develop a project for me to do while I am here. My project this past week with Sarah Cullen (Trend & Concept) is to organize all of the Silks that have been used as inspiration by the CAD team. All of the silks are purchased to use as print designs for the upcoming season.

Meetings

The meetings I attended this week were the limited edition trend preview meeting. Sarah for trend and concept went over each specific theme for the Autumn & Winter concepts. The fabrics that Holly sourced in Europe she presented to both the foundations team and the dressy sleep. Each team selected the fabrics that they liked and then those were given to the production and sourcing teams to find out the cost of each.

I attended the 2014 March & April Development review meeting where PD presented their story boards and samples, the merchants identified any call outs that they had for the line plan, and the silhouettes that are being tested were shown.

Chico's FAS presented to Soma the Copyright issues that the company must be aware of.  This meeting was very interesting because she showed examples of certain garments that the company has been sued for in the past and what the cost of this happening is. The meeting also addressed which prints did not have a copyright and which did. There is no set standard for how much you can copy off a garment, but if a company were to sue, the jury (average people) if they think that the garments are virtually the same then that is considered a copyright infringement. The most interesting fact that I heard was that FOREVER 21 sets aside a budget each season due to the fact that majority of their prints and styles are "knock-offs" and tend to be sued each season by big designers.

 Projects

This week I worked on projects given to me by the creative director. I had to take their list of competitive shopping and organize it so that each website is easy to access. I went through each website and added what the company's target market, price range, and type of clothing sold was.
I also started pulling pictures from these websites for the 2014 Summer apparel collection concept and trend.

This week I got to work with the Technical design team actually utilizing my skill set. Since Soma is made up of such a small team there are a lot of things that they want to get done but do not have enough time. TD had me update all of their sketches in Web PDM. Many of the styles are in the database but none of the technical specifications have been added, they are just the black and white PD sketch. I then had to pull all the samples on the list and go through each sketch and add stitching, remove prints, and add all the specific specifications that each garment had. It felt good to use what I have learned in school in a real world scenario, and the TD is extremely happy that they do not have to explain how to do any of it.

Strike-offs

Since I scored a 100% on the color test, Julieta the colorist, has me help her with color strike-offs. We look at each color swatch or print that the vendor sends and then comment on whether the specific color compared to the color standard is too green/too blue/ too yellow/ too red or if it's too dull/too light. 

Some issues that many prints sent have are that the mix of two colors happen, which means another color outside of the colorway is created. Besides the mixing of colors, there are three main printing issues which are pressure, heat and time. The pressure is based on the amount of saturation that is created, the amount of heat applied, and the time that the print is fed into the roller. What can cause these issues are whether or not a finish is applied. When a finish is applied prior to the printing, the print with flare in the ultraviolet light. If a finish is applied after the printing a change in the color will occur due to washing, steaming, or some type of additive. 

Julieta says that they prefer dyed to printing. If the printing is not the correct scale, we then would take the CAD print and the fabric print and place them in the scanner on top of one another to show the scale difference or issues. 

Julieta likes to stick to only three strike-offs because each printing session is more money.

Once we have gone through each strike-off we then enter all of our notes into a tracker and then that is sent to the vendor and the changes are made or the print/color will move to bulk printing.

Fittings

This week I sat in on all of the fittings. I really enjoy this because I get to see the product that Soma has and I get to learn all the terminology that the technical design and product development teams use. 

Lisha, one of the technical designers, has created standards for each type of style. During one of the fittings she had the fit model try on all the comparative competitive garments and documented why Soma's product is better and how. Some of the competitors are Eberjey, Flirt, Betsey Johnson, Ciao Bella, Calvin Klein, PJ Studio, and Cosabella. 

Meetings

I was able to sit in on the Direct to Consumer (DTC) meeting where Product Development sat in and made suggestions on which products should go into the next months mailers. What I found interesting was that the samples of each garment are made much longer for the models for the DTC photoshoots, which then are put into the mailers/catalogs. Within this meeting the DTC team decides which products will be shot and with what. 

In the middle of the week I had a touch-base with Sarah Cullen the trend and color specialist. She makes the initial trend and concept book which takes her 4-6 months to complete. She travels to Europe where many trend shows go on. She usually comes back with silks that are then placed into the upcoming seasons prints. Her main tasks are to lead the team making sure each area in the business is on the same page as the trends and colors she suggest and pushes and leads them to make what she sees, happen. She is also in charge of managing the CAD team and helps with print development,she attends print shows in Paris four times a year. Her last major role is to communicate with the financial team and with merchants to make sure that everything she sees for the next season can be executed and still make their IMU. 

Sarah's most rewarding part of her job is delivering the story telling aspect for all the specialists and then seeing where the collection goes.

I was then invited to sit in on the Print concept meeting. This was a meeting where all of the prints that the CAD team has created for May,June & July 2014 are shown to foundations and to the apparel teams. Each team then goes through each print and colorway and decides what print they would like to adopt for those months. Once the teams have collaborated they then tell the CAD team any changes they want so that each month's prints flow into one another but still are unique by month. Depending on the month and the category, more prints are needed and adopted than others. November is a high gift giving month so there are about 8-10 prints adopted by the Casual Pajama category but for May, June & July only 2-3 prints are needed in this category. 

My first week as a Soma Product Development Intern

This first week has been such an amazing experience for me, I could not have asked for a better internship or workplace. Before I came I had heard from various people how nice it is to work for Chico's FAS and how people genuinely love what they do. This in fact is very true. I have met a lot of people just in my first week and I am blown away with the kindness, hospitality, and everyone's willingness to want to teach me what they know. It is so nice to go into a workplace where you feel apart of the team and not as just an intern.

The nice thing about the internship program is that there are forty other interns. Of those forty only three of us are with Soma. The other two interns work for Soma's marketing and Soma's bra merchandising.

Orientation

On our first day all of us interns got to meet and we went through orientation all day. We learned about each Chico's FAS brands and what is expected at the workplace. We went over all the amenities that employees and the interns get to have including access to a free healthcare clinic on campus, free ice cream Thursdays, a brand new workout facility, free car service (for any breakdowns, flat tires, etc.) and three cafe's on campus.After a full day of getting to know the company our supervisors came to pick us up and introduced us to the team that we will be working with.

 Colorist

This week I had touch bases (one on one meetings) with all different people that work in Soma.
The first touch base was with Julieta, she has been in the industry for over 30 years. Her job title would be Colorist of the entire Soma company. Her main roles are to make sure that the colors no matter what type of fabrics match along with all the prints used both on the apparel side and on the foundations side. This is done by using a machine called Espectra Photometre, Exrite, and Data Color. It is a very tedious job and takes a person with extroidinary vision to see if a color matches or not. That being said Julieta gave me a color test called 100 Hue Munsell Test. This test is given to everyone in the company. It is best to be in the superior range (only having four or less mistakes) especially those in color and product development. Each range makes a person's credibility less and less. The test consists of five different rows of colors, the colors have two different hues that the value changes throughout to meet the next color.

In a light box under Natural Light I had to take each row and put them in order of what I saw would be right. As you can see all 100 pieces only vary little from each other. To my likeness I got 100% and everyone was very impressed!

 Technical Design

My next touch base was with Jennifer she is the head Technical Designer. Jennifer explained the process that product development (PD) goes through and how the product gets to the technical designer (TD). The main roles of the Technical designer is to make sure that each garment fits the standard measurements of Soma, to make sure that the construction is done correctly, that the sample is what the PD team is looking for, and to make recommendations to the vendor and overall teams using Web PDM. The TD also choose the placement of the labels and tags and help make changes on the vendors patterns where there may be errors.

Merchandising

I then met with Heather who is Assistant Merchant. She explained the process of a merchant and how it varies from Victoria Secret (where she worked prior) and how working for Soma the merchant has more of an opinion of what will work since there are less people to have to approve a product. The core role of the assistant merchant is to maintain the financial health of the department, to determine the strategy of each season, to focus on what makes the money from the following seasons, to conceptualize a line plan for the PD team, and to look at competitors to see what is selling and what isn't. As Heather explained, the merchants are the center of the company and every other department flows off of them.

 Production & Sourcing

I then met with Trever who is head of Production and Sourcing for the lounge wear and beauty products for Soma. Trever explained how the fabric is sourced and how important relationships with the vendors are. Soma has many different vendors but there are two main ones that Soma really likes to use and can trust. I learned that Soma does not design all of its prints but at times source them from different vendors, some vendors allow for Soma to buy the rights to the fabric and other times they set off a block of years before another company can use that same print or fabric. The production and sourcing makes sure that the PD team stays on budget so that the initial markup price can be met once the product gets to the stores. They make sure that the product is profitable. Sourcing also helps source the correct fabric or print that PD wants and also finds comparable ones to save money.

 Technical Design

Towards the end of the week I got to meet with two different technical designers, one was for dresses and lounge wear and  the other is for sleepwear.
Dija is the senior TD. The roles that are to be met are to check all areas needed that are on the Apparel fit checklist. This is done by using two different fit models that fit the ideal customer of Soma, a size medium. After the measurements are done on the model, the product is them placed on the standard dress form that is unique to Soma (each vendor has the exact dress form as well), and the measurements are taken again. TD uses the line sheets created by PD to keep track of all changes done and to make sure that the changes communicated to the vendor are done correctly. TD makes sure that the products are sent to the vendors on time to meet the correct delivery dates, and facilitates meetings with the cross-functional team to keep everyone up to date on each product. Dija emphasized the importance of visuals because it is easier to communicate through a picture to the vendor than with just emails.
Lisha is the technical designer for Sleepwear. She explained to me what she does on a daily basis. She replies to emails from the vendors, follows up with the vendor with comments and pictures, send over fit comments, and takes care of hand-offs from PD. Every Tuesday and Thursday TD has fittings and that is where the changes are made or approvals for pre-production are done. Once the pre-production sample is approved the top of production samples are sent from the vendors back to TD to make sure that everything looks exactly how it should before the product hits the store. In sleepwear a lot of the sample patterns are used over and over so Lisha is in the process of creating standard construction pieces which will make sure that less fittings are done and are more efficient. Lisha expressed how important it is to maintain good relations with the vendors and to be considerate to all that they have to do on their plate.

  Fittings

During the week, on Tuesday and Thursday, I sat in on two fittings. Each fitting session is a three hour period divided up into the correct product area: lounge wear, sleepwear, dressy sleepwear, and dresses. Each garment is put on the fit model and pictures of the front, back, and side are taken. Once the pictures are done the TD takes measurements of each garment and then marks down all the changes that need to be done. Every person in the PD area sits in on each meeting and also comments on what they like or don't like.

 Meetings

I also was able to sit in on a print approval meeting, a cross-functional team meeting, and in a dressy sleepwear and bra meeting to make sure that the prints and fabrics matched. In the CFT meeting each area of the department communicated any issues that each month's line were having. 

 Intern Program

While being in the intern program there are weekly meetings that each of us attend. This week we listened to a presentation about the life of a garment cycle for the Chico's brand and also participated in a classroom like presentation of how to improve public speaking.

My first week has been an amazing experience and makes me so excited for my career. I could not have attained a better internship!