This is the essay I submitted for my application to FIT, which fortunately for me, helped me get in. It illustrates how I feel about fashion, and why I am here in NYC doing what I love.
I push open the door and walk doe eyed, into the store. As my heart rate quickens, I can feel the plush carpet beneath my feet, smell the perfumes pumped into the air, and catch the glimpses of the Swarovski crystals as they refract the light. I stare in awe at a blonde woman in the back of the store, slipping on that breathtaking Carolina Herrera ball gown. My eyes wander to the hangers and my finger runs along the fabrics, smooth silk, rough tulle, soft feathers…and suddenly I stop breathing because of what I see. There, a meager six inches from my own foot, is a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Manolo’s, the shoe of choice for Galliano runway shows, the shoe said to “lengthen the leg from the hip all the way down to the toe cleavage”, the Mona Lisa of shoes, and I am staring at it.
It is in these moments that I am able to float in and out of high end boutiques that my smile reaches from Paris to New York. These moments are when I stop talking and just relax, taking everything in, from the ceiling to the floor shelves, hangers and boxes filled with the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I have a hard time determining what is more artistically influential for me, my trip to the Louvre or my time in this mall filled with everything I aspire to be. When staring at the red oversized quilted Chanel clutch, I have to muster up the ability to hold back tears. I realize that the sales clerks see me gawking at the beautiful purses knowing that the girl in the Old Navy cardigan and American Eagle shorts couldn’t possibly purchase anything, or appreciate what surrounds her…well, she has one thing right. The majority of the items in the boutique could have paid for my associate’s degree at community college, but she is wrong too. If there is one thing I can appreciate, one thing I know, one thing I love, it is fashion.
Like every “wanna be” designer, I cut up fabrics as a kid and pasted them on paper making my own designs, not realizing this would be a skill I would try to perfect 10 years down the road. I knew Vogue was the Bible; book marked Style.com on my computer, and watched every fashion show that ever aired on TV. I knew I loved it, I knew I wanted the life…but I knew there were obstacles. When I was 15 I went to the occupational outlook handbook online and nearly cried when I saw a 1% projected growth within the industry in the next 10 years….1%. I was going to have to have an edge. So that’s precisely what I did, I worked for that edge.
Whenever I had extra money in the states, I would drive myself to the nearest book store (Borders can thank me for half of its revenue within the past five years) and burry my nose in the fashion and art books, and meticulously decide which one to walk home with. I begged my Dad to buy me Vogues from all the countries he traveled to so I could pour over each one. I studied each page of Phaidon’s “The fashion Book” trying to fit in every anecdote from every designer into my head, “How did they start out?” “What is their atheistic?” “What set them apart?” I bought fine art books to try and teach myself how to draw the models I saw in magazines, I learned to paint so I could learn how colors compliment each other; I made jewelry so I could understand how accessories pair with clothes. I put on my favorite Jazz vinyl at the end of the day and drew until my eyes couldn’t focus anymore. I learned Terri Hatcher gives the best fashion insider advice, to always listen to the stories and advice of successful designers, and that if my dreams were to come true, and my hard work to pay off, I needed a fashion education. I needed a mentor to tell me not just how to draw a pretty model, but a mentor to tell me how exactly to manage my career, how to work in retail, how to market myself more successfully and therein lies my need for an education from FIT.
Every designer has a fashion love story, ambition, and desire, but not everyone has the business savvy, and the education. With a degree in Merchandising, my gasps of breath will not only be reserved for Manolo Blahniks work, but for myself as well. For that day I can walk into a store, have my heart rate quicken, smell the perfume, and let a lone tear fill up in my eye as I step foot into my own store and finally say to myself “I told you you could do it.”
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Where is Bloomindgdales going?
This is a paper I wrote recently for my fashion business practices class, it deals with a new development in the fashion world. The availability of the runway looks right off the runway..no need for the department stores anymore. The article was from Womens Wear Daily titled: "Fast, Faster, Fastest"
As times change so do the means by which we conduct business. Yet innovation may not always prove to be helpful. The internet has been a powerful tool in filling the “I have to have it now” mentality of many fashion followers, but the impact on the high end market has yet to be fully understood in the long run. As consumers are allowed to fulfill their needs; fashion changes, and new rules are written and we stare into the future wondering where we are going, and what is going to greet us when we arrive.
With the availability of fashion straight from the runway people are left wondering “what happens to the Neiman Marcuss, Bergdoff Goodmans, and Bloomindales of the world?” Why do the buyers buy if the market has already been saturated with the season’s hottest looks? For the designer this can be a good thing, if monitored closely. With the advent of buying straight off the runway the
designer no longer has to worry about getting looks to the stores at certain deadlines, they don’t have to markup to compensate for selling to the department stores, and no more worries of buying back merchandise that doesn’t sell, just don’t produce it! Yet like everything in life and fashion, there is always a double edged sword, we must remember to look at the other side. What happens when designers create a look they love that no one buys? If the shopper never sees it in the store, she never feels the pressure to buy because of its seemed acceptance or never feels the urge to try on something that she may not know looks good on her. Does this mean the designer loses their sense of self and designs only what will sell out quick rather than chancing a risk ever again? Furthermore does the designer spurt out and create more and more season to keep up with a constant demand and does the traditional fashion cycle fade into oblivion? There are many unanswerable questions, as to whether this idea of buying off the runway is fully advantageous for all parties. If the department stores go out of business massive numbers of jobs are lost, and in places where fashion is king, people plunge head first into unemployment. Those who previously gobbled up the latest fashions no longer have the financial resources to buy the new collections they previously placed on the floors. Designers must remember that those who sell their fashions are also some of their best customers, you may please one customer base, but you also lose another.
The technology plunge is not lost to just buying off the runway, the designer as well has been replaced. With the creation of sites like Jeffsilverman.com the customer becomes the designer. While this increases a customer’s own satisfaction it does not make room for the designer. Women will no longer have to compromise with a fashion that does not fully suit them. They can try on a dress at a designer boutique and rush home to redesign the product. Remove a pocket here, add a pleat there and
like magic, they have the same outfit, customized to them…and taken from the designer. How does a site like this stop knockoffs? To compete with this the designer no longer has an idea, they become slave to commercial demand.
Throughout fashion and for that matter world history innovation and technology have massively reshaped the way we ponder business practices. Some changes have been for the best…while others have meant the ultimate demise of many practices. While the future is not fully known we must stare down the road we are traveling and decide if the path were on is the place we want to end up, and if we truly have a hand in this future.
As times change so do the means by which we conduct business. Yet innovation may not always prove to be helpful. The internet has been a powerful tool in filling the “I have to have it now” mentality of many fashion followers, but the impact on the high end market has yet to be fully understood in the long run. As consumers are allowed to fulfill their needs; fashion changes, and new rules are written and we stare into the future wondering where we are going, and what is going to greet us when we arrive.
With the availability of fashion straight from the runway people are left wondering “what happens to the Neiman Marcuss, Bergdoff Goodmans, and Bloomindales of the world?” Why do the buyers buy if the market has already been saturated with the season’s hottest looks? For the designer this can be a good thing, if monitored closely. With the advent of buying straight off the runway the
designer no longer has to worry about getting looks to the stores at certain deadlines, they don’t have to markup to compensate for selling to the department stores, and no more worries of buying back merchandise that doesn’t sell, just don’t produce it! Yet like everything in life and fashion, there is always a double edged sword, we must remember to look at the other side. What happens when designers create a look they love that no one buys? If the shopper never sees it in the store, she never feels the pressure to buy because of its seemed acceptance or never feels the urge to try on something that she may not know looks good on her. Does this mean the designer loses their sense of self and designs only what will sell out quick rather than chancing a risk ever again? Furthermore does the designer spurt out and create more and more season to keep up with a constant demand and does the traditional fashion cycle fade into oblivion? There are many unanswerable questions, as to whether this idea of buying off the runway is fully advantageous for all parties. If the department stores go out of business massive numbers of jobs are lost, and in places where fashion is king, people plunge head first into unemployment. Those who previously gobbled up the latest fashions no longer have the financial resources to buy the new collections they previously placed on the floors. Designers must remember that those who sell their fashions are also some of their best customers, you may please one customer base, but you also lose another.
The technology plunge is not lost to just buying off the runway, the designer as well has been replaced. With the creation of sites like Jeffsilverman.com the customer becomes the designer. While this increases a customer’s own satisfaction it does not make room for the designer. Women will no longer have to compromise with a fashion that does not fully suit them. They can try on a dress at a designer boutique and rush home to redesign the product. Remove a pocket here, add a pleat there and
like magic, they have the same outfit, customized to them…and taken from the designer. How does a site like this stop knockoffs? To compete with this the designer no longer has an idea, they become slave to commercial demand.
Throughout fashion and for that matter world history innovation and technology have massively reshaped the way we ponder business practices. Some changes have been for the best…while others have meant the ultimate demise of many practices. While the future is not fully known we must stare down the road we are traveling and decide if the path were on is the place we want to end up, and if we truly have a hand in this future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)