Tuesday: Quick Recap.

Sat in on the meeting for the photoshoot prep, basically they do a shoot for the internet, they do a shoot for the national ad campaign and they do their annual shoot for the Program. Jenny showed us all the different style and color options and then our mission is to come up with ideas for outdoor shooting, concepts for sets and stories to tell with the photo shoots. (Especially for the bridesmaid)

After that I organized the swatching and displayed some of the broaches that were collecting dust.

I then was given the task of going through the sample sale dresses and marking off the styles and colors that no longer exist within the showroom. (Found at least 2 dresses that i like)

Also listed out my internship duties and did some swatching.

I listened to the messages from the wholesale stores and wrote down the information.

Thursday was a very busy day, I started the day by creating an Order Reports Expediting binder which has all the open orders, packing lists, WIP reports and instructions in it. I created one for our showroom as well as chicago's showroom. Afterwards I continued to pull past wedding folders, do some standard everyday filing. I created a file in excel that listed all the attributes of the Jenny Yoo collections, for example whether the dresses are A-Line, Empire Waist etc..., this is to help the sales associates when they are trying to sell a product this familarizes them with the benefits to each style so that they can then communicate to the client all of the special features and why certain attributes are beneficial to the look and even why the client should invest in pieces with certain attributes, ultimately with the goal of making sales. I did some swatching and put together some new client folders. I took the folders that I had pulled of the past weddings and began to e-mail the brides to congradulate them and ask them if they could send some photos of the bridal party, to use as promotional material on the website and facebook page. My last job of the day was to redress all the manaquins. (probably my favorite part of the day since I was given no direction and got to choose my own color scheme). I feel that I am learning a lot and thoroughly enjoy my internship. :)

Today I arrived 20 minutes early, and got right to work filing packing slips and pick slips for whole sale companies and clients. I filed them by the name of the company if it was whole sale and by the brides name if it was a client. After I completed that task I commenced on my mission of returning dresses, in the fashion industry it has been understanding that companies will buy products from well known companies in order to use an idea they like or an idea that is working better than one they currently have. It is a tool of inspiration in a lot of ways but on the other hand this is also how one creates knock0ffs. So I spent over an hour returning dresses. the first store was Macy's in Herald Square (which I already dislike that particular macy's) it did not help that 4 different departments told me 5 different areas in which to return said garments. I rode as you might imagine the escalator quite a bit. But finally when I found the correct department I had to wait in line for half an hour. My biggest dislikes of that particular store are that they categorize it by designer, you can't return garments just anywhere (which is what I found out today) it has to be in the department in which they were bought and they need to work on their customer service. But that is why I avoid shopping there if at all possible. Flagship store hah! It's the biggest headache I ever got from a retail store.

The other store I went to was Anthropologie in Rockafeller Center, which was not a headache and very pleasant. After I finally got back to JY, I ate lunch and relaxed for a bit. All the running around made me kind of tired and hot. While on my lunch break I did begin looking up things to do around town. I then filed cut slips and swatched (which I am improving on) I also filed Pick ups for dresses and when there was nothing really left for me to do at 5:30 I stacked toilet paper, paper towels, and napkins in the employee bathroom. The last thing I did today was begin to pull the past date folders which are the folders of orders that have already happened, meaning that the wedding day has passed. I got through A-H but i still have to finish them on thursday. Debra is also giving me a project on thursday (which i can't quite remember what it is at the moment, mayb it will come to me again later) Rita also wanted to start me on a project but couldn't quite get it organized today.

It was a busy tuesday but a good tuesday. :) I like being busy.

Thursday I finished up my label assignment, finished creating the labels, then I cut them into strips and placed them in their respective swatch envelopes. I ate lunch. After lunch Ashley (the other intern) and I went through the racks of extra dresses and highlighted their style numbers and codes in order to better organize the company and show which styles and dresses in those styles they had extra for. After that I organized binders and pulled pick slips which are like a receipt for each order that needs to be signed when the dresses are picked up. However I was only pulling certain orders, the ones that needed to be Rush, which refers to orders that need to be priority in production because the event is coming up sooner than others. After that I was trained for picking up garments. It seems pretty simple, look up the brides name (even if it is a brides maid) and then everyone will be listed under that person, and you pull the dress out and place it in a bag unless it is a wedding dress and then you place those in garment bags , you give them a list of tailors if they want it and always give great customer service. I ended Thursday by doing some cleaning, dusting, reorganizing etc.... This week they are going to have me and Ashley reconsolidate and reorganize the closets.

Tuesday was tiring to say the least. I started off the day by making a list of the color labels that were missing from the swatches. Then seeing as I could not get on a computer until about 4 hours before my shift ended I created more new client folders which basically you take a blank folder, put the Jenny Yoo sticker on the front, place a catalog a swatch sheet and a sheet describing the order process. I did 50 of those then I completed some swatches (about 7 , 3 whole salers and 4 clients). I ate lunch, then filed folders and computed the color labels I did the Shantungs, the Eastern Shantungs, the Bobbinnets and the Charmeuses. This was my tuesday in readers digest versionish. Sorry for the short and the sweet but it is thursday and I am leaving for work in about 15 minutes.

The second day went almost better than the first. (which is a really good thing)

Activities:
Meeting
Streaming
Fitting
Labeling
More Steaming

I arrived 10 minutes early today, and got to observe a morning improvement meeting. The topic of the meeting was "making sure the client feels comfortable and understands the process of the appointment" in other words better customer service.

The main point of discussion was walking the client step by step through the appointment before the appointment begins and explaining why the associates are doing certain steps to neutralize any fears the client might have. Some of the steps included, setting up a profile on the computer database, asking probing questions about styles, colors, fit, season, length, event etc... taking measurements which can be convenient because then the bride or bridal party does not have to come back for a second appointment, providing color swatches and putting all the information gathered in the appointment into a folder for the bride to take with her when she leaves to use as a resource.


Steaming: both in the morning and afternoon went really well, I steamed about 40 dresses approx. (I like it, though it is hot, painful and does not agree with my skin)


The Fitting: I think went really well, the new collection looks really nice and I'm excited to work with it. I'm glad that I got to observe the fitting because I think it is one of those things that we always plan to learn at Caz but just as easily it is something that we put off when we run out of time.

The dresses being fitted were 1st samples so they will go back to production with corrections and then the second samples will come and have to be fitted as well, in order to make sure that the corrections fixed the problems present in the 1st samples.

Labeling: was easy, all I had to do was label each dress with the date and 1st sample.


I thought today went really well, I need to ask Jenny about travel/food compensation and also I need to show her my portfolio and see what she thinks.

This weekend I'm going to update the website, do some fabric research and think up ideas for my collection.

(week 1 done, 9 left to go)

Summer Internship.

Hi,

It's been a while, I'm in the city once again interning at Jenny Yoo Collections, which is located near Hearld Square at 139 35th st. on the 9th floor.

I had my first day yesterday, Tuesday May 25th 2010 and it was a little nerve wracking at first and a little intimidating but by the end of the day it was quite pleasant. I met a lot of people yesterday, Nicole who was basically the secertary for the front door and who would bring clients into to wait for the show room associates. Kate and Debra were the two show room associates and whom I will be most often helping out. Kerry whom is the person who communicated between the different stores and show rooms, Sandra who is as Jenny said a multitasking super hero and then last but certainly not least is Jenny Yoo herself, she was really nice and i'm glad I have the opportunity to work with a group of girls that all seem to want to be very helpful and also the other good thing about a smaller company is that they do a lot of things inhouse so it is a great opportunity for me to see a lot of different aspects of the production process.

Before I continue with my tasks for the first day I just want to mention that Liz and Adi's wedding planner works in the same office, so I got to meet James as well, and he was thrilled to finally meet me. :)

First day....,

Tasks:
Swatches
Call Backs
Dusting
Hangers
Steaming
Organization of showroom
Filing

Swatching is when you take a whole sale or a client request for a specific fabric and you mail it to them.
Whole Sale - you find or cut a big square (2) roll them, place them in plastic bags and then into a manila envelope.
Client- go to the center console in the show room get the specific paper, the swatch and label tape, fold and place in white letter envelope.

Call backs was when we would call the brides or bridal party to tell them that their dresses or sashes or ties were ready to be picked up in the show room. (personally I don't like talking on the phone but i'll get over it)

Wedding Wizard.

Dusting was one of those tasks that one gets when there is nothing else for them to do... well, at least their shelves looked a lot better afterwards.

Hangers- Jenny Collections got a shippment of 150 bridal hangers, so I switched out all non bridal hangers that were still on the showroom floor and then separated the hangers into LA, Chicago and NYC because at least 65 had to go to LA, at least 50 had to go to Chicago and we had to hang onto a couple.

Steaming- The new 2011 sample 1 dresses came in so I was asked to steam them because if they are correct then they will be used for the photo shoots for next season. I got to use an industrial iron and it does a really good job getting wrinkles out but then that is what it is supposed to do.

Oranization of showroom and filing- the showroom has a lot of cabinets and as Kate told me that on saturdays when the showroom is really busy they tend to just throw everything in willy nilly, so I reorganized all the cabinets and filed the folders of brides that had been charged but their weddings had not come up yet.

And that.... was my first day. I arrived at 11 and left at 6, in my meeting with Jenny we decided that my hours, in order to make the goal of 150 hours required, is that on Tuesday I work 7 hours from 11-6 and on Thursdays I work 8 hours from 11-7. She also seemed interested in seeing my portfolio and letting me do some sketching etc..


Expectations:
I want to have a well rounded experience and I want to learn a lot about industrial production and how all the different aspects add up to create a company.

Jenny's Expectations:
She wants me to become instinctive and in a way self motivating and self sufficient.


Tomorrow is another day, hopefully it is as good as the first.