fashion merchandising

An American Dreamer: Tommy Hilfiger

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While on the annual GCC fashion trip to NYC we were able to meet with alumni, Connor deGuehery, from Tommy Hilfiger.  We were able to look at the Tommy Hilfiger store, on 5th Ave, find out what really goes on behind the scenes of planning and putting together each floor.

In our fashion buying class, we got the opportunity to watch a video of Tommy Hilfiger being interviewed and introducing us to his book, An American Dreamer: My Life in Fashion and Business.   Tommy informed everyone of how he started out struggling in high school with his grades and concentrating on schoolwork, but transformed into a  hardworking, successful ,businessman. Fashion is his purpose for the world.

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Some of the highlights that stood out to me from this video were that the company is in the process of adding new technologies within the business and they are quickly changing the rules of the fashion world. They now are working with a new concept where you can buy their clothing with a touch of the screen in the store. You are able to get that quick, and efficient order while still getting that shopping experience that allows you to touch and try on the pieces. This allows the customer to purchase an item, but walk away hands-free!  Also, for the first time in fashion history, the Tommy Hilfiger company is looking to change the whole fashion calendar. They are taking the newest designs on the runway, and selling them instantly, no more waiting! This concept is called See Now, Buy Now.This could potentially be a whole new approach for brands. I think it will positively impact the fashion industry in that more people will want to buy the product, increasing sales.

Tommy Hilfiger also grew up in a small town right near GCC and the  town, Batavia NY. He grew up and had his first small boutique in Elmira, NY; just under two hours away from our college. It would be a honor to have Tommy come back to Western New York and speak with all our fashion students. That would be such a memorable experience for our college and every fashion student. We are constantly keeping up with the latest news within the Tommy Hilfiger company, as we have alumni a part of it, and are very interested in this ever growing company!

This blog post was written by Kourtney Shearer

 

 

NYC Visual Diary Day 2

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Hello everyone! Day 2 in New York City started off right with a visit to the Gitman Brothers Showroom. After Gitman Brothers, we headed to the Tommy Hilfiger flagship store, on 5th Ave, to have a tour of the store from GCC Fashion Program Alum, Connor. Following Tommy, we headed to the fashion forecasting giant, The Doneger Group. It was an amazing day and in the coming weeks I will be posting more in depth on each of the wonderful places we were able to visit. All of us in the GCC fashion program want to thank the individuals who were willing to take time out of their day to meet with us. We cannot thank you enough.  Be sure to follow us on Instagram, @trendy.gcc, on Twitter, @trendygcc, and on Snapchat, @trendygcc.

Internship at WWD JAPAN

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My name is on a Japanese fashion magazine “FASHION NEWS” !

FN cover　　My name on Fashion News

What happened to me? The answer is what I did during the summer vacation.

KONNICHIWA (hello)! I am Asahi, an international student from Japan.

My major is fashion merchandising, and I interned at INFAS publications for two and a half months. The company publishes WWD JAPAN, which is a weekly paper, although WWD is a daily paper in the United States, and FASHION NEWS, a collection magazine published soon after each season collection ended. I belonged to the editor division and worked for both magazines. My office hours were about seven hours a day, five days a week.

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My daily routine:

  • Cleaning a room for the editorial department when other employees go to a different meeting room.
  • Answering telephones and connecting editors. Most phone calls were from the PRs of companies including Prada Japan, Chloe Japan, Dior Japan or sometimes from designers.
  • Opening the mail (About 200 envelopes a day!) and distributing them to each employee.
  • Making a schedule sheet with Excel for the upcoming events and exhibitions.
  • Picking garments that will be used in a shooting or returning them to each brand.
  • Putting the back numbers of WWD JAPAN in order.

They may seem to be chores, but I could be in the office with editors who write articles for WWD JAPAN (which I love reading!) and I was excited about doing my tasks that could help them.

Men’s fashion week in Paris, Milan, London and Florence was held from end of June to first of July. Kaname Murakami, the editor in chief of FASHION NEWS, came back to the office from his business trip for the fashion shows and asked me to help to make the 2014 S/S menswear issue.

My job for the FASHION NEWS was…

1) Making phone calls to about 150 brands’ PRs to ask whether they would cooperate with us and answer some questions about the shows or not.

2) Mailing surveys to each PR, including some brands’ PRs whose companies are located in London.

3) Collecting the surveys from PRs by the due date.

4) Putting the survey answers on a server as well as printing them, so all the editors in the office could see them.

5) Calling some PRs who had not sent back the surveys. I called them several days before the due date to urge them to mail to me as soon as possible because their brands could not be in the magazine if they missed the date.

6) Making the content pages below. In this task, I needed to be careful that I spelled everything right!

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7) Making the reference pages, including the brands’ names and telephone numbers of the customer centers and PRs.

During these jobs, I continued working for WWD JAPAN.

Finally, I finished all my jobs for FASHION NEWS, and my name is on it! I was so surprised! My favorite part about the internship was meeting the editors who work for WWD, and being able to keep in touch with them. If you are interested in an industry, I recommend you try to intern with people working in the real world. You will have a lot of good opportunities! I am very proud of my experience.

If you want to read these magazines, WWD japan or Fashion News, let me know!