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!