UPDATE/ Westwood 2 Months

Well, it has been a hefty amount of time since I last posted - a whole 34 days to be precise. And there is only one reason for that, it's been absolutely crazy busy in the showroom. But a lot has happened since then.

I've actually done my very own appointment with clients, which I never thought I'd be able to say I'd done because I was uber nervous and scared and every emotion under the sun about talking about the product to people. But I actually find it mega fun now I'm in the gist of it. It's a shame this is the last week of selling before we start approaching deadlines and having to finalise orders officially.

My daily routine the past month or so has consisted of coming in and preparing the selling books depending on how many clients we had that day. If we were busy, I was generally in the showroom helping Nico during the appointments and if it got quiet, I'd then go up to the office and enter the orders from the different lines. I thought seeing as mens and womans jeans are such small lines I had it so much easier than say the mens main range as the orders that come in for them are so huge and confusing; but having to deal with that are all the accessories and the different suppliers that they come from is a whole different ball game. For one, jeans, Laipe (which is small leather goods and bags) and jewellery are all inputting on a web order system - which is pretty easy to understand. But then there's Albisetti (which is for scarves, ties and underwear) and is insanely slow and painful to use. And Lastly there's Maytron, which you have to put on a spread sheet; slightly less painful to input but keeping track of all the orders is a taxing job.

Once the orders have been inputted they have to be double checked before being finalised on the different systems. This is important as you can't change the order if there is a mistake once you've sent it to the supplier. This always makes me super nervous incase there is a mistake I've missed since I'm basically OCD with checking things. But luckily someone else checks it as well.

One main highlight of my last few weeks has been talking to Vivienne herself!! Yes I know, so major. I only had to ask her a silly question but still I had a full on conversation with the lady herself. I think every part of me was sweaty and shaking during the process. I also got to attend/work the Red Label show at London Fashion Week! Again, such an amazing opportunity. I basically had a front row seat and managed to get some amazing videos and picture. It has got to be one of the highlights of 2014 yet!

    

    

It's been a hectic few weeks, with 12 hour days with no real breaks but I'm enjoying it so much I'm not noticing too much. Just living for my days off at the weekend. I'm in such a routine I kind of don't want to leave. I always get like this on long internships, I won't be saying that near the end of uni in 13 months time and I have nothing lined up and I'm all alone in the big bad world of work!

I'll probably go another update in a week or so if I've done anything new to report on.

Westwood Day 11

The end of last week and this week is still all about entering orders. I helped out the mens main range to enter all their store orders last week and on Friday last week/today all the jeans orders have been piling in I've been hot on entering them. As I've said before, discrepancies tend to hold back entering the orders and sending them back to the buyers to be checked so today has been an emailing frenzy, trying to get all the orders checked and in on time as the deadline is tomorrow - AHH. This has been the most stressful task so far, as if the orders are wrong it's going to cause havoc and when you're sitting at a computer all day staring a tiny numbers, there are bound to be mistakes, so I'm becoming OCD in checking things.

However, I was asked to merchandise the accessories for the clear cabinets they have in the mens showroom. I was apprehensive at first but once I got into it I really enjoyed it and bosses were really pleased with what I produced and decided to keep it this way! As I finished this on Friday night, some buyers had been in during the weekend and dismantled it look at the stock to enter orders. Of course I hadn't photographed the cabinets yet and I could remember where everything went when trying to redress them today. This was so frustrating as I wanted it to be as perfect as before. But by the end of today I managed to get it to something I was happy with and of course photographed it before someone else got their hands on it! 

I'm still loving it, now it's getting more high pressure and getting more responsibility, I feel the heat settling in but I'm sure I'll keep up - Report back soon!

Westwood Day 8

I'm now midway through my second week and still loving it at Westwood! Yesterday and today I learnt how to enter the different client orders. As different manufacturers deal with different parts of the company, such as Laipe is mens accessories, there are different order forms and methods of filling it out. I learnt how to input the mens main range orders and the mens knitwear and unisex knitwear today and literally didn't move from the desk as there were so many orders to input. But luckily I had Agatha to input them with (the other intern).

I quite enjoyed this, even though it was a long day, from half 9-7:30 inputting the orders, as some of the info the buyers had put in was wrong so we had to check a lot of it back with them. As we had all the buyers from the stores across the country in last week, we had 9 different orders to do which apparently wont happen again, as they have a nearer deadline for the stock to be delivered compared to other stores so was a mad dash today to make sure they were ready. Once we input them, they go back to the buyers and two others I believe to be checked before we can 'finalise' it on the programmes. As once this is done, there is no going back!

Westwood - Week 1 Round Up

Well I've reached the end of my first week at Vivienne Westwood, and it's been a good one. This week has been relatively quiet, but as I've been informed many a time, it's going to get 'crazy' busy as of next week which I'm nervous yet excited for. Once the first week of appointments is done and I'm in the swing of how things work I'm sure it'll all be fine.

The end of the week involved a lot of printing of selling books ready for next weeks appointments, and pricing of the collections. I'm kind of moving between Anglo jeans, accessories, and the mens main range so I'm getting to know each collection. Friday we had a casting call for male models who are needed in the appointments if clients want to see any of the garments on. This was hard work, but worth it.. (joke, obviously.) Me and the other two interns also helped merchandise the stock and arrange the room the way Juliana wanted it, ready for next week.

To make sure the room has the right ambience during appointments as well, Nico, Juliana and myself went to Liberty to pick out some Diptyque candles for the showroom. We ended up going for Opopanax, which reminded us all of Amaretto, so not bad at all! 

As I said it was quite a quiet week but, I think I've got at least all the interns names down and the majority of the showroom executives names. I say this now but no doubt tomorrow I will have forgotten someone.

Wish me luck for my second week!

Westwood Day 2

I survived my second day! Today I learnt what the selling book is, which is basically the book that gets given to all the buyers that come in to view the collections and it includes details such as the sizes each garment comes in, the materials, the colours and styles it comes in, and most importantly the price.

Myself and another intern called Agatha had to organise it in a certain way so it looked professional for the clients. We also had to add the correct selling prices which were GBP, Euros and Euro Plus. I'm not quite sure what Euro Plus is, and I totally forgot to ask, but will check tomorrow. Due to the sheer about of garments there were and due to having to do this three times with the difference currencies, this took up quite a lot of time, but I quite enjoyed it, as I got to know the selling book, especially as I'll be working with it a lot over the next three months.

However as this wasn't my supervisors selling book, as they're are different supervisors for different parts of the collection, I went back to my supervisor (Nico) towards the end of the day to make appointments with the clients which he couldn't get hold of on the previous day. So the rest of my day involved making calls. I also learnt how they schedule their appointments, and the colour codes which go with each department.

Thus far, I'm really enjoying it. I know this because I'm not counting down the hours till the end of the day; I'm enjoying getting to know all the people at the office and learning loads. Of course a lot of Italian was used again today!

See you tomorrow!

Westwood Day 1

My second internship began today at Vivienne Westwood as one of the showroom interns. To say I was nervous this morning would of been an understatement, but my first day went off without a hitch!

Much like all first days, it involved a lot of showing around and getting to know people in the office. One of my main tasks which took up a bit of my morning and basically all my afternoon was unpacking the Anglomania samples which arrived from Milan. According to Nico, my boss, they deal mostly with Milan which was interesting to know, and since a lot of the office are Italian born, I got to listen to a lot of it today, I have a feeling I'll be almost fluent by the end.. 

After unpacking, I had to categorise it all and check it in, and due to the sheer amount of it that's why it took all afternoon. After this was done it was basically time to go, after being shown where to put the rubbish!

Due to their Milan Fashion Week Men's show being yesterday, a lot of people were out of the office, but it meant a quiet first day which aint half bad.

So far, the people seem super friendly and it looks like a really fun office. They're also 4 other interns to learn things a long the way with me which is quite nice, I like having someone to refer things back to.

I know I'm going to learn a lot and I'm really excited - a lot more to be said than Oasis, but we'll forget about that now; out with the old and in with the new! Report back tomorrow, ciao! (and it begins).

Oasis Day 5

Today consisted of doing odd bits and bob jobs that'd I'd done last week. I did learn what ROS meant today, and it means Rate Of Sale, which is the rate at which an item is predicted to sell out. It is dependent on how many sales it makes in a day/week. The lower the ROS the better, as it means it sells out quickly meaning more sales. I'm pretty proud I remembered it.

I think my brain is coming around to this whole maths and numbers thing. I don't want to jinx it but I bet I have now..

People I've met count: 6
No. of things learnt: 11
Brain ache scale: 2/10

I may just do a round up come Friday (my last day) of my experience of merchandising as a whole and Oasis, what do ya think? I think I'm gonna do it...

Oasis Day 4

With it being my fourth day, I'm in more of a morning routine now, getting on with the previous days daily sales, and then carrying on with other tasks I hadn't finished from the previous day.

I was then shown how to fill in the best and worst sheets, unlike the other day when all I had to do was to print them. This meant I got to look at the pictures of the product which was a bit more exciting to me than the spreadsheets. Although, of course, it ended up being a lot more mathematical than that, and looking a the main DS to fill out its core information. There were a lot and I mean A LOT of these to fill in and I only had till 3 to finish as then the office was starting to set up for their Christmas party. So I'm sure I'll be picking this back up as on Monday. Unless it was needed for Friday and in that case the MAA Steph would have finished it for me...

Friday was a bit of a write-off as I wasn't very well so didn't go in. Slightly worried I may have forgotten how to do things by tomorrow as I've been off for three days now but I'm sure I'll pick it up in no time.

People I've met count: 6
No. of things learnt: 10
Brain ache scale: 4/10

Here I go into my final week! 

Oasis Day 3

Today was significantly better than expected. I was dreading doing the daily sales report by myself this morning but it was a lot less painful than I thought. I think my mood lifted when I'd restored faith in myself that I could actually do it un-aided.

For the first hour as I said I completed the daily sales for jersey and denim, and was slightly relieved I didn't have to do accessories. I then completed checking the cost prices from the day before, which is one of the jobs I liked so things only began to get better. Steph had mentioned adding images from the Oasis site onto the Best & Worst spreads the day before but I think I ran out of time so today all I had to do was get these ready and print and photocopy them ready for each departments meeting with the directors - trying to do this when your printer wont cooperate is a bit of a challenge but got there in the end. As the name suggests, these are a selection or up to 10 of the best and worst sellers from the previous season. As they're focussing on SS14, this involved using SS13 information to help see what they wanted to use this season, colour or style wise.

I was also shown how to add to the Ratio Banks. These are (yes, you guessed it) spreadsheets that work out the ratio of what stock is sold of a certain item and if we over or underestimated the amount of stock we've got. For example on a certain top we expected to sell 3% of it but actually sold 8%, which shows us we need to be sending more out as it's clearly a big hit. When I'm explained these things, I understand it, but trying to explain it in my own words is such a struggle, gah.

Using my knowledge of the daily sales, I also learnt how to check these for whole sale. As you may or may not know, Oasis are also available on ASOS and on other sites such Zalando, Koovs and Little Woods, so we need to make sure the cost price, product code, name of the product etc are correct so they know what they're selling the product at and what to call it. So this is important. As I was saying to Steph earlier, I've seen some brands on ASOS selling things at a cheaper price than the brand itself and it's obviously down to this - pretty cool!

I think that about sums up today, the only real thing I struggled with was checking the whole sale DS so not bad!

People I've met count: 8
No. of things learnt: 12
Brain ache scale: 3/10 - getting better.
See ya tomorrow!

Oasis Day 2

Another day, another spreadsheet. Today was another day of being shown how to input information into the merchandisers excel documents under jersey, denim and accessories. Of course they all have totally different ways of doing the same thing just to make it that much easier for me.. joke.

Today was mainly about learning how to do the daily sales. I met another MAA called Stephanie who has been with the company for 3 months so far, as Nicola has now left so Steph is the person I go to if I need help.

Daily sales is pretty self explanatory - if you don't include all the numbers. It involves working out basically what all the stores took the previous day, but only in the jersey, denim and accessory departments. Using sheets that have been filled out but the company director already with figures, it's a case of inputting these figures into the correct places on the spreadsheet and a percentage is worked out for you (thank god). But there is some maths involved, something you have to do some timing and working out the percentage to time it by yourself, which is where I tend to get confused.

After this, I was then shown how to produce labels. These are used by the buyers in all the meets, as they hang off the garments they talk about it. It contains all that particular garments details such as what its sold the previous week, or what week it's coming in etc etc. Stephen then asked me to check the cost price of some jersey that had come in, and making sure what we had down on paper matched with the online documents. This involved using a programme called Mercatus which contains A LOT of info for the merch teams but I've only used it for reports and this so far. This was quite a fun task, and only involved ticking off ones that matched and marking down which ones where wrong and flagging it with steph.

One of my last tasks of the day was checking the input reports. This is a way of tracking when each shipment of stock is coming in, and again to see if what we had printed matched. I think I'll only need to do this when Jenna, the senior merch for denim, asks me to look up something so that won't be a daily routinely task.

These posts will probably lack a lot of imagery as i'm not allowed to take photos in the office, and doubt you want to see pictures of huge excel sheets with a load of numbers on.

People I've met count: 6
No. of things learnt: 7
Brain ache scale: 7/10 - this isn't good.

See ya after day three!

Oasis Day 1

As part of my second year at uni, I've got to go on a min 6 week placement, and I've decided to do two- (well more made too since I couldn't do longer at one.) My first one is at Aurora Fashions with Oasis in the merchandising department. I've never dabbled in merchandising before and don't really know too much about it apart from that it's quite numbers based which isn't my strength, but I wanted to see if I'd actually like it.

The office is based in Shoreditch (so fashion darling) and they share it with other Aurora based companies such as Coast and Karen Millan. So at half 9 on the dot (was meant to get there for 10, but I'm forever early) I stepped into the building and was greeted by Lisa who is part of HR, and she showed me round quickly and did the usual health and safety bits. Then I was introduced to Jenna, the head of denim merch and her MMA Nicola, who are both part of the merch team. The office is laid out in a sort of semi-circle shape and on the right side of the semi-circle are rows of desks with 4-5 merchandisers on one side and vice versa on the other but with buyers so it's they're opposite each other, and every desk is the same.

One of the first things Jenna explained is that the department is split up into sections, she, as I said, is in charge of denim, and she also sits with Yasmin, who is part of jersey merch. At 11:45 on a Monday, the whole floor has a meeting where the company director does an over view of the previous week, sales wise and then each sub-department presents to everyone else. They used a lot of terms which I noted down to get meanings for such as like-for-like and ROS but it is only day 1, so I'm sure I'll pick it up by the end of my time there. As this is was the first real thing I was part of on the day, it all sounded very complicated, but by the high praise the company director, the previous week had been a good one, as they made £4.7 million. Each department showed a variety of best sellers and some which didn't sell to much. Do to the season it was mainly SS wear they're pushing, but knitwear and coats took a majority of the profit.

Straight after the meeting, with the aid of Nicola, I had to fill in the company flows for denim and jersey. As they sell a variety of denim, as well as leg lengths, this was a lengthy process. This also involved using Excel, which I'm quite rusty on, especially being so used to Mac's and they use PC so it took a couple of goes to get back into the swing of things, but was alright pretty quickly. A lot of it involved just imputing data the department had already worked out using BOB spreadsheets, and each section of the department has a different BOB number. However, some other sheets, such as the company flows involved more mathematical thought. Each section I had to fill in had a shortened name which I'm obviously not used to so remembering which one meant what and collecting the right data to input was a challenge. I then moved onto the accessories department to do similar tasks to end the afternoon.

To say my first day was a challenge would be an understatement, but the heads of departments I worked with where really helpful, and were always eager to explain again when I found things difficult

People I've met count: 5
No. of things learnt: 3
Brain ache scale: 4/10

I will report back with day two tomorrow! Hopefully it wont be as lengthy.

Hello I'm Paul Smith

The Paul Smith exhibition at the Design Museum opened last week. It offers visitors a deep insight into the designers work and life. Curated my Donna Loveday, Head of Curatorial at the Design Museum; she hopes it'll be as ever popular as the Louboutin one, which broke all previous visitor record - wow. I went to see that one and must say, it's a tough act to follow.

The retrospective is set out in the stages of his life, starting with the starting up of his very first store - a compact 3m/3m space opened in Nottingham in 1970 which visitors can walk through to get a feel for what the original store was like. It'll also features a makeshift version of the designers office, full of curious objects he's collected on his travels and plenty of artwork.

The exhibition seems cute and quant, providing an in depth insight into the designers private world. In true Design Museum style, it's full of content, yet finally laid out in a simplistic manor. Even if you're not a fan of Paul Smith, I would go see it as part of a day out between Christmas and March. You can book different time slots via Ticketweb, with night showings available as well. Tickets start at £13.27 for adults and £8.40 for students, booking fees may apply.

The Beckham's Give Back

Victoria has rightly so earned her place within the fashion industry, with pure hard work and determination - even if she does say she doesn't have a nanny help her with Harper, huc hum...

Her and the glorious David Beckham have been a golden couple since the early 90's and have been seen in some cracking outfits that have become iconic. Amidst the recent tragic Typhoon in the Philippines, the Beckham's have decided to give a little back in the way of fashion.

They're donated a range of these iconic outfits to the Red Cross charity, more than 20 boxes to be precise, with proceeds going to help people affected by the typhoon Haiyan.

Shoes ranging from Jimmy Choo, to Manolo Blahnik

Of course everyone knows Victoria is also known for her rather slim frame, and with the average size of a women in the UK now being a size 16, women are hopeful to attempt to fit in some of her garments. Thank god for shoes eh. But I guess the whole point of it would be to just own something that has been in the graces of the Victorias presents of even just in her wardrobe; that's how I'd see it anyway. 

The queue for the Kensington Red Cross branch where the garments were donated was humongous, as desperate buyers waited to hopefully buy a piece of the celebrities. It's such a shame to hear though that people were lucky enough to have bought items, listed them just hours later on eBay, to pocket hundreds of pounds potentially from them. The act of donating is sort of lost by doing this, and I'd feel very disappointed if I were these people. I guess it is hard to crack down on eBayers in this sense, as I know this happens a lot with sold out Zara items that 'bloggers' have.

A rather 'Saturday Night Fever-esq' suit worn by the one and only David B himself

Did you manage to get anything?

Battle Of The Brands

As you know, Isabel Marant has collaborated with H&M and Kate Bosworth was relived by Topshop. But it hasn't seemed to stop there. Topshop have now endorsed their 4th designer collaboration with Meadham Kirchhoff! The high street brands are really going at this Christmas to get shoppers out of other brands and into theirs - and rightly so, it is the season for good will and all that, but nothing wrong with a healthy bit of competition is there...

The collection is just 'cooky' to say the least, with goofy monster faces on knits to flaming headbands. If you would describe your style as minimalist you better stay well clear. Topshop has had many a success with its designer collabs in the past and I'm sure this one will follow suit. Whether you'd pick your office Christmas party outfit from the range? I'm not sure, but there's certainly a market out there for it. On the Topshop website, it describes the collection as 'kitsch' and kitsch it is.

So who did it best? Isabel for H&M of Kirchhoff for Topshop? Personally, I feel Kirchhoff will do better, sales-wise, but Isabel is more my style. What do you guys think? 

Lush Ft. Vivienne Westwood

I recently did a post on Vivienne Westwood collaborating with The Cambridge Satchel Company and other heritage brands. She has now decided to dip her toe into the skin care industry-

Lush, the cosmetic brand who pride themselves on using all natural ingredients in their products used to use paper to wrap up their goodies for customers. That however is all about to change. Westwood has designed a range of scarves Lush can now use to wrap up their products to cut back on the use of paper to help support Vivienne's cause Climate Revolution. In this time of good will and giving, enough wrapping paper is used to going around the world, wait for it.... 9 TIMES! That's just staggering. So these scarves are to help promote saving the environment and that it's not about the wrapping but the gift inside.

So the aim of the game is to look out for the environment. So you gain a nice smelly bath bomb this christmas with a Viv Westwood designed scarf. I know I'm definitely popping down my nearest store to get one, but are you?

For more info visit her site: http://climaterevolution.co.uk/wp/

Model Moment

With the British Fashion Awards fast approaching (8 days time to be precise) and one of the main awards being model of the year, it got me thinking about who my favourite models are and one of my recent obsessions, Suki Waterhouse, I just think she's so stunning, and I wish my hair would look like that, le sigh. She also has major female envy since nabbing Bradley Cooper. So here are a few of my fav snaps of suki, enjoy!

Fashion That Cares

In a mist of brands co-endorsing collections for fashion brands more than ever recently, we've also had an influx of brands and good causes. One prime example is MAC cosmetics and their Viva Glam collections. One of the most recent ones is Viva Glam Nicki, which features Nicki Minaj fronting a selection of lipsticks, with a different packaging to the iconic MAC black bullets where all profits go towards women, men and children living with HIC/AIDS. The colours are totally original and separate from MACs own mammoth lipstick range. This I think was a clever ploy on MAC's behalf, as any loyal make-up brand follower love anything limited edition as it's something that not every will have. They also feel less guilty when purchasing it as you think 'well, I'm technically giving money straight to charity therefore it's acceptable to spend £15 on a lipstick..' They also have a matching lipglass along side the lipstick going for £14. Now they're back with the original RuPaul, who MAC first featured back in 1994! I just love the tackiness of it I've got to say.

Another brand targeting AIDS is Maison Martin Margiela with their printed tees. Similarly to MAC, MMM started producing t-shirts for the charity 'AIDES' a french charity fighting to help those living with the virus. Each year they change up the colour and print the same logo on each. They're slightly more steep on the price compared to MAC going for €75, but it's all for charity eh.

Kim Kardashian has also put a load of her clothes on ebay to go towards the Philippines Typhoon Haiyan aid more recently, but it comes with a big however. It has been revealed that only 10% of the earnings ACTUALLY goes towards the help! This is a total cop-out on Kimmys part, a women reportedly worth 40 million, she's not exactly strapped for cash! So when there's some brands out to look after their image and help good causes, there are also some people who just, aren't. Shame on you Kimmy K.

Alexander McQueen & Damien Hirst Scarf Collaboration

When I first heard about this collaboration, my head nearly fell off with excitement! McQueen's scarfs are iconic and anyone blind bat would be able to recognise one from a mile away so I just knew a collaboration of some sort as going to be coming soon. Damien Hirst is one of my favourite artists, and after visiting his exhibition at The Tate earlier this year, it just reaffirmed my love for his work so you can't really blame me for being over the moon when I hear he's joining with also one of my favourite british designers.

His butterfly pieces are so known and glorious in the flesh, it seems only right they do a mash of of this with the skull print. I don't think a sheep or shark in formaldehyde would make much of a good print to be honest...

With his silk chiffon skull scarves starting from £165, these could not be further from that - the starting price for these one off's is £315, going all the way to a steep £715. It definitely confirms they'll be forever on my wish list. I'm yet to visit them in the shops but they're almost sold out online after being out a mere 3 days - surprise surprise.

The advertising via Youtube is stunning and captures the image beautifully and only makes me want one more - check it out below.

Moving Up For Marant

Isabel Marant's collection H&M has been massively anticipated for months and it finally hit the shelves last Friday and it has sold out so fast, H&M's online site over-sold it. It's continuing to over-sell to its costumers, many of them have received apology emails as they've had to cancel their orders. Well if there was any doubt that the collection would fair I'm sure it has faded, and fast.

I myself wasn't too fussed about the collection seeing the lookbook before the release, but after hearing about the sell out, it's made me want to revisit it. I've seen an overside black and while fluffy coat on a few women out and about which I wasn't crazy about to start with, but after seeing it on someone, it's definitely growing on me. The sequin trousers had me for a second also, but maybe after I've dropped a couple of pounds haha.

However, this internet glitch may have cost them not just on internet sales, but in store sales also. Costumers are reportedly so disappointed in the brands e-commerce they're calling it a 's*** show' and boycotting the whole collaboration altogether! This just shows the power that brands have by having an online presence these days; people no longer want or have to push their way through crowds of people when they can be in the comfort of their own home and still be able to access brands collaborations. Fair enough, you're not the only one having the same idea by waiting up till late to be the first on there, and even then sites can crash if they can't cope with large amounts of traffic. However it still doesn't stop people sitting and refreshing for hours on end.

What did you make of the collection? Any stand-out pieces for you?