DIY do not always generate a creative mixture

Everyday is full of surprise here. I have lost track to what I was initially assigned to do. I have gained a lot of responsibility; I get to jump in many of the decisions that have to be taken. For instance, I am now on responsible for planning the upcoming collection photo shoot (in January 2015). How cool is that? It is fun and it encourages me to do my best in every situation since I can feel that my boss trusts me. 

During this week, I was busy with archiving rejected prototypes, making an order for the upcoming photo shoot, and packing products for an event we had this week in collaboration with another brand. 

What I learned this time is in conjunction with the event we held together with this other brand. The event was planned long before my internship. But I noticed that the two brands had completely different target groups, which I believe justifies the poor sales performance. As such, I think that it is crucial to understand the customers of a company you intend to collaborate with. That way, you can ensure a win-win situation. However, it is not always about the sales right? People that would have never come across our brand got back home with a new brand to put on their list. This also shows the bad side of startsups, limited resources forces you to do everything yourself, sometimes for the best as I stated in my previous post but also, as of our latest sales event, for the worst.

Next, I might have the opportunity to follow my boss to a meeting with a potential retailer. This is completely new to me so I’m looking really forward to be there and see how things get down!

Merci et bon weekend!

Go Hard or Go Home

Hello everyone!

It is great to have this small window into your lives now. Hope you are enjoying your internship and challenges. Here is a bit about mine :)



                     It is now the fouth week of my internship at the Company which has two own brands of sports- and casual wear for professional athlets. It would not be too strong statement to say that my knowledge about the processes inside the company and outside connections and collaborations has been growing tremendously within this period of time
                    I started my internship in the purchasing department first and got my first task to write the presentation about the Company for current and potentional business partners, suppliers in particular. This tasked served as a push to learn more about the Company itself, its history, competitive advantages, opportunities, and risks, as well as the demands and expectations from the suppliers.                                                                 

                  My next task was to develop new suppliers' database for the development of the accessories line. Here I had an opportunity to apply several sourcing techniques as well as bring my faithful contacts to start sampling and price negotiations process with new vendors. During this process I have been learning a lot about the Acceptable Quality Level and Design Requirements of this Company as a Product developer, as well as getting acquainted with more and more of my new colleagues. Starting from the third week I was invited to all the meetings concerning Purchasing/Production and Design processes and got a new challenging task to make the analysis of the excisting procurement system and give my feed-back in a form of presentation in 5 weeks since then. Within the scale of this task I got an opportunity to visit the warehouse and talk to the logistic and QC department there. The visits of two suppliers from outseas and the merchandisers from our QC office in Southen Europé made that week especially interesting and my Picture about the Company - more complete.

                 Invitation to the Swedish Fitness Festival in Gothenburg together with all the other employees of the Company has become an outstanding experience. Almost all employees and business partners of the company came all the way down to Gothenburg from Dallas and Toronto, Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Moscow, Istanbul and Stockholm.  opportunity to know more about our partners, competitors, to meet colleagues from all over the World and get inspired by healthy and sporty Lifestyle.

                 Next tasks to cover - revision of the contract with vendors, development of Standard Operational Procedures for Factory Evaluation for outsourced production and behave well at a corporate Julbord :)

Best regards

Victoria

What? Where? Why?

Hello everyone!  I’m having my internship at one of Norway’s biggest fashion brand. Now I’m currently working as an intern at this fashion brand’s marketing department, having the time of my life. The tasks that I’ve been given is everything from writing on their social media channels, helping out on photo shoots, doing research on various topics  -  all depending on what I want to learn and what projects they have going on.

During my first weeks in my internship I attended several meetings, learning about their projects, how they worked together as a team, who they collaborated with from the other departments and meeting many exciting people.  This was a great way for me to get to know this fashion brand from the inside-out and the different players within it.

One of my main tasks in the internship is posting posts on their facebook page and Instagram page. Therefor during the very first week I got trained by my manager that is the company’s social media manager. The training consisted of me learning about how they handle and make their social media posts. Learning about what they consider is ok and not ok to do, what guidelines they follow and what programs and apps they uses. Basically it all has to fit (reflect) the brand and their marketing plan.

Everyday I’m learning something new, meeting someone new and doing something I’ve never done before. My first weeks have been really exciting and can’t wait to experience the next weeks ahead.

//Marthe  

Quality assurance

After almost four weeks at this internship, routines start to appear and my knowledge is increasing. After three weeks at the purchasing department, I have moved to the quality assurance department. This is to see how this department works, but also to understand more how the purchasing and quality assurance work together. Since I have decided to write my report about how different departments work together and how the organization is built, this gives me a good opportunity to understand this collaboration.

During this week at the quality assurance department I have learned a lot. I now know much more about different testing methods, how to measure the garment correctly and more about washing the garments. Even though I want to work with purchasing, it is extremely important to understand the whole chain and know about the different processes and I think this will only help me in the future.

I have understood that the quality assurance can look different in the fashion industry depending on which company you visit. But at my internship, the quality assurance department is quite huge with four employees that only work with this. It is fun for me to see this since this since it is a little bit rare.

I am looking forward to continue this internship, after this week I am going back to the purchasing department. But I will also visit the design department and the garment technicians department. This will help me with the report and make me understand all the different processes, which also makes me understand more about the fashion industry.

Finding a right supplier

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am gonna focus on collection production process seen from my perspective. I don't design but try to find solutions for what's designed and planned for upcoming collection. The more creative designer, the more time spent on the research, the more fun!

In practice, it means browsing a lot of websites and even more phone calls and emails, which can actually be fun. I have never thought Polish language skills will be ever so handy in my job! However, it can be tricky as well, since I really don't know how some words I keep using just in English are actually in my native language. Oops. OK, I know, but they sound too weird.

You can also imagine how much fun is to actually find a local (German) supplier without speaking the language. Thank you, Google Translator (and my German friends).

During my research, I also realised how much knowledge I am actually missing regarding the most basic accessories in textile industry. Thought button is a button? Seeing just the names of the materials they are made out of already means another research for me. But that's actually very helpful and I'm learning a lot!

While contacting suppliers, you really need to have some communication and negotiation skills, especially when it comes to discussing minimum order, receiving free samples, delivery time, prices etc. But once the sample arrives, and you hear 'Great research!', you know that hours in front of computer screen were not wasted.

Ciao!

//Beata

Impressions within Fast Fashion II

Hallå!

 

 

 

It is now the fifth week at the company and new impressions are gathered daily. The last couple of weeks contained various meetings within the construction, online and visual merchandising team in which I luckily had the opportunity to share my knowledge about visual communication and brand building as well as some insights about what I feel determines the German consumer.

 

Now after five weeks, routine is slowly setting in. I know my duties and I know whom to talk to when I get stuck. It is also interesting to see how my contact list within the company (even across countries) is increasing day by day and therefore the amount of tasks I receive does as well. My main task that I had from day one, which was an analysis of leasing contracts in Germany, came to an end this week and therefore I'm up for new challenges. As I'm more and more involved in the construction and retail design team my new tasks will involve a lot of research within layout creation and shop fitting companies that can support the retail establishments. The process of construction is very complex and it can be expected that I will learn a lot regarding this field.

 

I'm looking forward to the progression of this week as I'm sure that my inbox will be containing new surprises.

 

Still alive and kicking,

 

Sven R.

 

 

 

 



Fashion Marketing for a Start-Up

Hello,

finally I am publishing my first post regarding the internship I actually started already at the beginning of October as I had the opportunity of joining a fashion start-up from Gothenburg then. They needed help with marketing their upcoming pop-up store, so I took on this role. Now that the store is open, I am still doing marketing and communications but I am also present in the store sometimes.

What have I done during the last weeks? Well, mostly I took care of online marketing activities, such as blogging, updating social media and contacting press and other bloggers. However, I also helped out with other tasks such as planning the launch event, shooting outfits with models, uploading products to the online store (on Tictail and iZettle, two platforms I have never worked with before) and I also implemented a feedback form on the website for customers who have ordered something from the store. 

A behind-the-scenes picture I took during one of our shootings ;) 

I think I have already learnt a lot and gotten a great overview about how exciting, yet difficult, it is to start your own business. There is so much you have to consider and you have to maintain a very flexible attitude whilst not losing focus of your goals as you depend on so many factors/other people/technology that can cause the silliest problems at the worst times. I think it is important to stick together as a team in order to overcome these issues that might arise and I feel like we are a very good team and I am happy to have joined this project! 

The concept of the start-up is quite special and therefore the pop-up store, which has opened in November, is kind of a trial period for the company. My learning outcome will probably be very different from other peoples' as our strategy is more about trial and error and adjusting than having set rules already that I can just suck in. As I am very interested in entrepreneurship though, I think this was a perfect choice and I will tell you more about the concept in my next post.

xoxo

Week 2 and 3

My project is coming along well. I’m currently researching the field of sustainability and CSR strategies and I’m working on the conceptual background for the study. My aim is to, in the empirical part, interview representatives from different types of fashion companies in Sweden to analyse how grounded their sustainability commitment is depending on ownership structure, business model and market segment. I have my own office space where I work, with a window in the pitched roof with a beautiful view over the rooftops of Haga and Linnéstaden.

During one of the lunches last week, I asked the head of department about the differences between the eco-labels in the Swedish market and the competitive issues that might arise due to the amount of labels, as well as companies own “green initiative” campaigns. Personally, I think it is hard to separate and interpret what many of the labels and certifications really mean, and I believe that regular consumers are even more confused by the many types of labels available.

I learned that the most common labels in Sweden, and the labels that are the most alike are:
Nordic Ecolabel/The Swan, which is the official label for the Nordic countries. It is governed at state level jointly by Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
Bra Miljöval/Good Environmental Choice, which is governed by the independent Swedish organization Naturskyddsföreningen/Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.
Eu Eco-label, which is governed by the European Union.

In Sweden the licenses and development for both the Swan and the EU Eco-label are responsibilities for the organisation Miljömärkning Sverige AB, assigned by the government. Swedish Society for Nature Conservation is an independent membership-organization.

The criteria set by these organizations when it comes to environmental impact, harmful substances and ethics of production are close to each other. Nordic Ecolabel and Good Environmental Choice has both existed for a bit over 20 years and they are both well known by consumers in many product categories. Since they are so close I was wondering what really separated them and of course wanted to know which one is “the best” to go with. The closeness of the two (and three for that matter) makes any choice a good one; it is always better to buy one of these (even if it is a competitor’s label) than to buy a non-certified product. The differences between the two Swedish labels lie in the criteria formulation and the development process. Since the Swan is governed by five countries together their process is much more complex and they have had problems entering in to new areas, as the different countries have differences in opinions. The criteria set are a bit more flexible within the Swan, and there is a bigger opportunity for companies to get away with trade-offs or arguments to keep specific and somewhat questionable substances. The Good Environmental Choice is more black and white, with clearer specifications of what substances are allowed or not, and thereby they can easier say no. So there is a difference in methodology where the latter might be stricter in some regards.

I was also interested in the choice of partnerships with companies who wants to get certified. The Good Environmental Choice label works for product groups, products or materials, but also at store level, for example in grocery stores. Since it is not the company itself who gets certified, but the products, I was wondering if not the potential badwill of a company would risk to spill over at the organization itself, hurting credibility if a partner company would have an ethical crisis. Was this risk something they consider? I would believe that consumers (and SSNC members) would think less of the organization if for example H&M was granted a certification for their socks (hypothetical case), when the ethics of H&M’s overall business strategy and as a company can be discussed. Especially in these times when they have been in the media regarding the wages of their garment producers in Bangladesh, and the land grabbing practices of some of their cotton producers in Ethiopia. Surprisingly this was not considered to be a risk or a problem for SSNC, and the solution is said to be “clear communication about what the label is about and how the certification system works”. If the organization communicates clearly about why a company receives a certification and what it covers, consumers will not have unrealistic expectations and so cannot be disappointed in the labelling organization itself. To me this showcases a very rational consumer behaviour, which is surprising as so many other aspects of consumer behaviour and demands are emotionally driven.

I’m glad that it works this way even though for myself I would wish for a better way to distinguish between companies on the company-level, since I believe that even by purchasing a specific "good" item one might put money into an “evil” system. From another perspective though, this might be what drives a good development - if demand for certified and “good” products increase, more investments would be put to those and hopefully, eventually, bad products and production processes would finally be unfulfilling for companies.

-

In the end of my second week I visited the conference The Design of Prosperity in Borås, to listen to companies and associations discuss sustainability and the need for transparency in textile supply chains. It was an interesting day and I always enjoy hearing real life stories from companies who strive to implement sustainable practices, though this day was more inspirational than teaching.

What moved me the most was a small sentence that Kavita Parmar, founder of the IOU project, said. It was something so small and simple, but two weeks later it is still with me. She reminded me of something that I think is often forgotten when talking about supply chain management. That the supply chain is made of human beings. Human beings are the supply chain, no matter how automated it is. She said that a Nike shoe is touched by a human 246 times before it reaches the consumer. Social and environmental aspects of the supply chain are managed by close relationships and joint understandings of ethical practices. It is too easy to see the supply chain as just value adding entities that are separated from the ordering company. In the same way, as a consumer I rarely reflect over who sew my sweater, or who picked the cotton for my jeans. Who stitched my sneakers, who cut my t-shirt and who knitted my scarf? Everyday when you get dressed, you should give just a second of your time to reflect and maybe give a thank you to the people who by their own hands made it possible for you to wear your garments. You should be thankful, value the pieces you own and think twice before throwing it away. Someone made this for you.

The conference was also a perfect opportunity for me to network with industry representatives, and to meet respondents for my study. I have three really exciting, but different, companies who said that they wanted to take part in my project: H&M, Filippa K and Woolpower. This means one global fast fashion company, one smaller slow fashion company and one outdoor company. This has given me some direction in my work with the study, and I will try to reach out to other actors in the same three categories to get a spread of answers and a possibility to study differences depending on market niches. In my fourth week I hope to have the survey ready for a test round, and then send it out. By now I have read through around 30 scientific articles, so I’m pretty excited to move on to the empirical part of the project…

Emelie

What do we really know about it?

In the previous post I mentioned how different crises have different types of impact on the company and it is now the fun starts! After being a pessimist and looking into all the things that can go pear-shaped we now have to find out what we can do about it.  If we start to rank the risks and making a prioritising list, the things that are most important soon starts to stand out from the crowd. Are there any parts in the manufacturing that are essential, are there any weak links in the logistics department, and is the safety measures for the employees up to scratch to mention a few.

But here we must also realise that there are things that does not show up as a threat even though they are just that. In the book ‘Building a Resilient Enterprise’ by Yossi Sheffi, the author presents that the near misses often are warnings of disasters that can happen in the future. A good example of this is my father’s quest for increasing the safety for the road workers and how they did not think about the near misses, when things could have gone horribly wrong but did not. As often is the case, they did not reflect on the near misses since nothing really happened but by talking about it on a meeting the reports of the near misses grew and the company got more information, and could therefore prevent injuries in the future. This is a good example of how there exist information about risks among the employees but that it not always finds its way up the chain of command to those that can prevent them.

So to conclude this post: If you see something that can go wrong, tell people about it and make sure that your superiors and co-workers are aware of it even though they might not like what you are saying, in the words of Margaret Heffernan: “Dare to disagree!”

Sara Jonsson, TASTE13 (Master programme in textile management with specialisation textile value chain management)