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.