Posts Tagged: fashion industry

I refused to eat the shark fin soup. It sounds crazy, but I’m convinced that played a major role in the recent loss of my design job. Over the past fifteen years, I have held some rather difficult jobs and worked with some seriously crazy people. It’s definitely been character building, to say the least. I had been working in my latest role for just over eight months and I walked on egg shells every day because I feared that I could lose my job at any moment. I knew it was coming, the pattern had long been established.

Last month PinkyShears was invited to the Free People 40th Street showroom in NYC, to attend a sales meeting where merchandisers educated the store specialists and sales staff on styles for the upcoming Holiday ‘09 season. The objective for the night was to review sales objectives for each store, review the collection, and show how to sell and merchandise the clothes. The merchandisers from the Philadelphia offices headed the meeting.

…There are two techniques 1) Creating an outfit for the customer while they are in the fitting rooms and 2) Recommending accessories and add-ons. It sounds simple enough, but it has many built-in benefits to sales. They didn’t mention the thought process behind the techniques to the associates, but my take on it is this…

Elizabeth Willse and Brandon Graham from PinkyShears.com interview designer Nanette Lepore and Joe Raico from the HBO documentary “Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags.” See editor, Elizabeth Willse’s, “Save the Garment District” recap at http://pinkyshears.com/2009/10/save-t…

“The heart and soul of New York city.” “The key to a diversified economy,” “an education, nurturing young designers,” “the hub of my fashion life,” Whatever words they chose, each impassioned speaker at today’s Save The Garment Center rally took the same message to the microphone. The garment industry is an essential part of New York’s history, and may hold the answer for saving New York’s economy.

PinkyShears coverage of New York City’s Save The Garment Center Rally will be posted later today, with photos and video from the event.

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Upcoming feature documentary Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags, premiering Monday October 19th at 9 pm on HBO. Paul Cavazza who we featured earlier in the week is in this movie. So be sure to catch it!

Press Release for PinkyShears.com

Announcing the launch of PinkyShears.com, a web magazine created to foster communication across the different aspects of the fashion industry, from design, to manufacture, to marketing.

Geared towards students, industry professionals, and anyone whose curiosity is piqued by Project Runway, PinkyShears.com will use interviews, profiles and news roundups to rebuild communication across the industry.

Free content will include:

* A gallery of contributors’ and readers designs.
* Resources for designers creating their own clothing lines.
* Fashion history and current industry news

Paul Cavazza’s Background
Cavazza’s parents ran a clothing manufacturing company in his hometown of Marlborough, New York. They lived above the factory. He and his brothers worked there after school. “My parents,” he joked, “didn’t know what child labor laws were.” He and his brothers did tasks like sewing on [...]

Paul Cavazza’s company, Create-A-Marker, does grading and makes markers for numerous customers in the fashion industry. He is a natural and highly visual problem solver, sketching to illustrate his points as he shares stories of his life in the garment industry. He grew up in the garment industry here in New York, [...]