KappAhl in Shanghai part 3

Hello!

Eight weeks have passed, and my internship has come to an end. Since last time I have worked with the merchandising team for woven and outerwear. Pretty much similar work as with the previous merchandising teams, but with woven and outerwear merchandises instead. The following week I worked with the quality control department and we visited suppliers and factories. We did some qc inspections to ensure good quality of the products and that supplier can manage agreed delivery date. Finally, I worked at the shipping department. One of the days, we visited Ningbo port and the warehouse at the port, which is among the busiest port in the world (according to Wikipedia).

 

I am so grateful that I got the opportunity to complete my internship at KappAhl in Shanghai. My colleagues have taken so much care of me and shared invaluable knowledge. I have gained an insight into the production part of the textile industry, the process from sourcing suppliers in China until the goods are shipped to Sweden. Based on this, I have been given the opportunity to analyze and dive into problems related to the area, which I will bring with me in my continued career together with all my experiences.

Although Shanghai is one of the coolest cities I have been to (in many ways) it will be nice to go back home to Sweden. I miss homemade food, fresh air (!), easy access to social media platforms and the internet, and of course my loved ones. Anyway, I leave Shanghai with many new experiences. Overall, my time here has been amazing, and I have learned indescribably much during this time. This was all for me! Bye bye bye!

Research assistant internship CBMs 2nd

Research assistant internship CBMs 2^nd

Hi everyone!

Last week, I discussed the introduction and importance of Circular Economy (CE) and Circular Business Models (CNMs).

After going through the literature, found that the main business needs for CE are:

                      

                      Minimizing material waste

Minimizing water consumption

                      Utilizing renewable energy sources

                      Minimizing energy waste

                      Flexible designing to achieve disassembly, alteration and easy repair

                      Higher trace-ability and transparency in the whole supply chain

Minimizing effluents and emissions

Minimizing chemical use and restricting harmful chemicals

Preventing labour exploitation and fraudulent accounting

In my understanding, these needs contribute to form sustainable organisations. Based on the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) theory; social, economic and environmental sustainabilities are equally important. To achieve this sustainability goals CE and CBMs are essential. 

Throughout the last seven weeks, I gained vast knowledge about the CE and CBMs. This exciting topic encourages me to learn more. The more I learn, I envisage the criticality of the circular economy and the circular business models. How it can make a difference in the future. The possibility of achieving sustainable businesses and make the world a better place is inevitable through CE and CBMs.

Next week, I will discuss the existing certifications and the tool selected for the study. How they assess the circularity of a business.

Varuna                                          

TIMEOUT Jeans Chapter 2: Moda Makers and further developments

Hello everyone,

It has only been ten days since my last post, but so much has happened already that I feel it is time to tell another part of my journey here at Timeout in Bologna.

Last week was a full-immersion experience looking for suppliers and new ideas for the Spring-Summer ’20 collection. The main part of this research was attending Moda Makers fashion fair in Carpi, a beautiful historical town at about 64km from Bologna. The fair gave us the opportunity to establish contacts with several suppliers who provided a wide range of products: all kinds of patterns, knitwear, shirts with a lot of embroidery as well as other categories, all made in Italy, which definitely made prices for production increase, but with a perceivable added value in terms of quality. Since one of the company goals for SS2020 is developing a capsule collection that will be distinguishable and exclusive, mainly in terms of quality, Moda Makers has definitely been a great source of inspiration and possibilities in this sense.

Another part of the project for next summer collection is being able to introduce new ranges of products with shorter lead times. Since most of the brand’s production is done in China, lead times are often quite long: it takes six months for garments to be delivered since the order is placed. Therefore, we managed to make a deal with some Chinese suppliers who make their garments in Italy and are able to provide new samples within a month. This will definitely ease the brand’s garment rotation in shops as well as reassortment needs.   

The more artistic part of last week’s work for me was creating new prints and patterns for men’s SS20 t-shirts, which I have been super excited for. This was an additional task I was asked to do, in order to try and find something new and interesting for the brand. I am really glad I got to do that and I hope I will be able to see the result on the actual pieces. My design background was really helpful in this case!  

I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks to see what else is coming!

Have a great day!

Cecilia

#OneVoiceforCraft: Chapter 1: India - day 48 in India

It's day 48 of the #OneVoiceforCraft field study I am conducting in India. Last time I wrote on the blog was 26 days ago. Almost a month in between, the data collection process has developed in a positively unexpected way.

My work in India started with making a preliminary itinerary based on 3 connections developed through the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative Network ("the Initial Connectors"). All Initial Connectors are individuals intimately connected with the textile craft space, with different levels of expertise, perspective and relationship with craft. Geographically they are based in Ahmedabad, Bhuj and Goa. 

Starting from each of the 3 Initial Connectors I used a snowball sampling method interviewing artisans, craftspeople as well as relevant craft stakeholders recommended by the Initial Connectors (artisans, craftspeople, artists, craft stakeholders are individually defined for the purpose of this research).

From the pool of recommended contacts the selection of the interviewees was made based on 3 cumulative criteria: craft diversity (max. 3 representatives of the same craft), placement in pyramid of influence and mastership (I identified a pyramid of power and influence as well as the internal schemes based on which different craft communities function) and relationship with the craft (subordination - crafts person as workforce or co-existence - artisan as artist). 

By this time I have conducted 9 in-depth interviews with artisans (based on a set of 24 standardized Questions + 6 logistic Questions for prospective study) and had unstructured interviews and observation with 11 individuals with different roles and positions within the textile crafts sector including a lawyer, a textile tour guide, a museum founder, 3 cultural entrepreneurs (fashion business), a textile engineer, a textile educator, a cultural guide. 

I have returned to Ahmedabad after the snowball sampling method shaped my itinerary to Jaipur, Kerala and Goa and will head back to Kutch on day #50 of #OneVoiceforCraft for another 2 in-depth interviews with artisans and a conclusion discussion with my local guide and research partner from Bhuj. 

Namaste!

P.S. Wearing SwaraVoiceofWomen @swaravoiceofwomen, Indian culturally sustainable brand, member of @culturalintellectualproperty that works with traditional Dabu hand block printers of the Chhipa community of Rajasthan, integrating traditional craftsmanship in their supply chain. 

Buying Internship pt.2

Hi everyone! (and hello weekend!)

Hope everyone is well. I just realized that I planned on writing and posting my second blog post on May 8th, which I missed by 10 days. Feel like this is just another testament of how time is flying by this spring. In my last post, I mentioned that I was working on a large project alongside my internship and I felt it deserved to be presented in this post. 

For the past seven weeks, I have conducted a competitor analysis of 20 different organizations within the industry with the purpose of analyzing their promotional strategies and campaigns. One major reason for this project is to try to find any general patterns or indicators towards first-movers in the market to help plan promotional campaigns in 2020 and onward. To be able to compare the organizations, I put up some criteria that needed to be followed, these include that the organizations needed to have a yearly turnover above 100M SEK, have the same, or similar brands, or at least a substitutable assortment from any private label created by the organization themselves. The data is collected directly from their websites, their official Instagram posts and stories and through newsletters on a daily basis, and so far, I've gathered an extensive amount of data to be used in my analysis in a couple of weeks. The most exciting part is that I have gotten an opportunity to present my findings (if I can find any!) on the next monthly department meeting during my last week in June.

I feel like a broken record that keep repeating the same things, but I have really enjoyed my internship and the opportunity to get hands-on experience outside of my studies and I can see through the previous posts that everyone on here feel the same way. My plan is to write my third, and last, post in three weeks time when I've done the presentation. Hopefully, I can then tell you if my intensive stalking of 20 different companies and their daily activities actually paid off :)

Have a good one!

Ellinor

Strategic Development Intern - YAS part2

Hello friends!

This week has passed by so fast. I have been up to so many different things since the last time I wrote here. Except from attending on different meetings with some suppliers and checking swatches as usual, I have also visited GANTs Archive where I had the chance to help them out and organise how everything should be displayed. However, by doing this I also had the opportunity to enrich myself with more knowledge about their items and see how their designs, logo, trims and everything has developed and changed by time. GANTs history is really rich and I am really happy that I got the chance to see and feel all their garments all the way back from the 40th.

Moreover, I have also attended to two different seminars during this and last week. One was about digital stress and one was about the importance of having a sustainable business in the future. The later one was held by an organisation called Futurice and they invited many different companies to discuss sustainability which was really interesting since I felt that I could connect it with my ongoing project about environmental footprint. However, I was a bit nervous going their since I was the only representative attending from my company but everything went well and I actually enjoyed it a lot.

Have a great day everyone!

Lots of Love - Yasmine Nehmé -

Sourcing SS20 at Franchetti

Hey Everyone!

Here comes an update from my internship at Franchetti. I have been at Franchetti for 6 weeks now on their buying department. Franchetti is a fashion company that help other famous fashion companies with design, production and sustainability. It is a b2b company that is located in Mölndal, in Gothenburg. I really enjoy my time here.

It has been so fun and time goes so fast. Things I have done so far is:

• I have daily contact with our supplies and our customers.
• Checking counter samples, shipping samples, photo samples and labels (the fit of the garment is very important).
• Worked a lot in photoshop with edit pictures for “photo with info” about styles that is going to be produced.
• Following up orders.
• Complie orders

For two weeks ago my college wanted to have a meeting with me. It was time to do sourcing for SS20. She wanted me to do this project. And it was a really interesting and fun project. Fist I needed to create a moodboard for inspiration to SS20. Than it was time to source fabrics from our suppliers that could be suitable for this season. I contacted our suppliers to see if they had good alternatives to the fabric selection for SS20. My job was than to following up this so that all suppliers send the right fabrics to us, right in time. It’s a fun project.

I like my time here at Franchetti.  The best part is that I have more fun projects to work with on this company. Next week I’m going to have an exciting meeting with the board to discuss how Franchetti can develop their social media marketing. This is also what I’m writing about in my thesis. It’s going to be really exciting.

Have a great day everyone and have fun with your field studies!

/ Emma!

My team gave me a very warm welcome my first day.

Research Assistant Internship

Hello everybody!

These weeks have gone so fast! I am doing a research assistant internship with the focus on Operationalization of Sustainability.  Right now my main focus is gathering literature for the report. I am also conducting a survey about the consumers perspective on sustainability, so if you have three minutes to spare you can do the survey through the link: https://sunet.artologik.net/hb/Survey/830 

For the research paper I will combine a literature review with the data from the survey and hopefully get some good results!

Emma

Impulse Buying and the influence of social media on intangible value creation - Interviews part 1

Hello everybody,

to explore my topic, phenomenological interviews are the main focus. The preparation for these interviews went very well and smoothly. I thought about different topic blocks, which I would like to cover in the course of the interview, as well as different sample questions for these blocks. Since the aim of phenomenological interviews is to be as individual as possible about the person to be interviewed and their answers, I tried to think of only very general questions in advance. The literature research which I started at the same time also helped me to integrate several other ideas into my interview concept. 

Although I had never done interviews of this kind before, I was confident that with the help of my interview concept everything would go well. During the first two interviews, I noticed that it is very difficult to deal with the respective statements of the persons and at the same time not to lose sight of the structure. Furthermore, after the first two interviews, I came up with many new ideas and approaches for my interview blocks as well as questions based on the conversations. That's why I worked on and optimized my interview concept before I conducted the next interviews.

I hope you're all doing all right. Cheers!

Raphael

2nd update from Lindex!

Hej everyone!

An update from me, slowly transforming into a plastics specialist at the Lindex sustainability department!!✌ Must say it is getting more and more embarrasing to come in with a take-away cup (but hej, at least without the plastic lid!).

As my internship will take a little longer - until the end of July - I am still in the stage of collecting data. I spoke to so many people within Lindex that are somehow involved in plastic packaging that this could be already a research in it self! At the same time I've created some drafts for possible circular strategies for plastic packaging. I like the dynamics of this research, the topic involves many different decision makers within logistics, production, buying, retail and sustainability departments. It is great to receive lots of company data and work together with all experienced and knowledgeable people within Lindex. I regularly make presentations for my supervisor so she stays updated on all my findings, this gives me the possibility to receive feedback along the way, making sure that I am on the right track.  

For the New Plastics Economy we have to report actions for each of the following goals, I work on these actions together with the involved departments:

1. Take action to eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging by 2025

2. Take action to move from single-use towards reuse models where relevant by 2025

3. 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025
4. 2025 post-consumer recycled content target across all plastic packaging used

Beside my research on plastics I try to absorb as much information as possible regarding other sustainability topics, attending meetings from e.g. Textile Exchange (certifications) and internal meetings that are interesting for me to get an overall view of Lindex' sustainability efforts. The social sustainability manager knows that I am really interested in social compliance and also provides me with lots of insights. Really valuable for me!  I enjoy the structure that office life gives me and I am really happy with the responsibility and freedom I get at Lindex during my internship.

Good luck with the last bit!

/ Eva