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).

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/

Westwood's Heritage Collaborations

Dame viv has been very busy the past coming months. She needs to be on a collaboration hype, making her mark with a range of heritage brands. First it was The Cambridge Satchel; these lary print beauties are true Westwood sale and hit the online store Monday 14th October. Since I wear a lot of black, I love spicing it up with colourful accessories, and these would make a perfect addition in my wardrobe. However, I'm not too keen on the gold logo embellishment; if only they had the option to make it silver. The white and read print is my fav! Which is yours?

The heritage luggage brand Globetrotter also got the Westwood treatment with her creating a tartan-lined case which comes with leather luggage belt, and straps in the her distinct squiggle print and finished off with a foil embossed luggage tag - amazing! 

It seems now more than ever that heritage brands are standing out, especially as the country is still in the midst of a recession, now more than ever we should be buying British. The collaborations to me seem like such a good idea, and not just because I love Vivienne Westwood. She has also collaboration with Lock&Co, Johnstons of Elgin and Pantherella. What do you make of the heritage collabs? 

September LFW 13 Round Up

Another September another Fashion Week down! New York went quick but LFW always flies and what a cracker it was. I must say I don't look forward to the SS shows as much as the AW just because I generally enjoying seeing winter clothes over the summer ones but nonetheless I had some definite favs of the week and a couple of disappointments.

I usually always enjoy Topshop Unique, winter or summer as they always put on a good show but I was really disappointed by the collection this season. It definitely lacked wow factor for me, even if Cara was opening and closing it. It could of been because last season they introduced a new interactive feature called 'model cam' which enabled viewers to see what the models were seeing with the use of cameras placed in their bags. This was interesting and new and the catwalk space was not the norm. All these features paired with the good collection made it really good and this year just didn't live up to it for me, sorry Toppers!

On a happier note, a show that never fails to deliver for me was Mulberry. The simple english heritage vibe it has always radiates through on the catwalk. I loved their use of brights, stripes and the matching totes were amazing. I'm also glad to see white is well and truly in again for next year. To top it all off, the British bull dog Turbo in his matching floral print mac was priceless! I don't know is this is becoming a permanent thing but I don't mind if it is; super cute.

Lily Coles interpretive dance was a er, different way of opening a fashion show this season but Vivienne Westwood has has always been a wild one, and this season was no different. None the less I thoroughly enjoyed it. The clothes themselves seemed quite tame, and there was one dress in particular, a navy 3/4 length sleeve shift dress which I could def see myself in. Not quite sure what I made of the zombie-esque make up but that can be over looked when the clothes are nice. Her Red Lebel signature draping neck lines were back as well which I loved.

My final fav would just have to be Erdem. I just found the collection absolutely beautiful; the lace dressing and ruffle trimming was stunning and just made me instantly feel summer after seeing it espesh in this sudden burst of cold weather. Also the majority of it was monochrome which of course is a winner for me. I did get a slightly gothic vibe for SS but I didn't mind it.

So these are just a few of my favs from this seasons LFW, were there any stand out shows for you?