Internship blogpost 2/3

Hello again!

In my previous post I told you about my internship at Helsinki Fashion Week where I and another intern are conducting a research on animal leather transparency. This time I will update you a little bit about our progress with this project. One of the biggest issues that we discuss in our report is the lack of efficient traceability for leather raw material, which consequently affects negatively to the overall transparency of the entire leather supply chain.. The report is nearly finished but now we are also developing a transparency questionnaire for brands that sell animal leather products. We hope to publish them both simultaneously since they are closely connected to each other and together they will create even bigger statement for the transparency requirements within the leather industry.

-Marita

Blog 2/3

I have been a bit behind on my postings, so I will have my next 2 posts quite close in time. Since my last post not much has changed. I am still doing influencer marketing and it is quite difficult since the owner gives herself many parameters. We can basically only contact Swedish influencers and since we are in a certain age group there are only so many influencers with our parameters in Sweden. Also the age group is older women and they ask for a lot of money. I have discovered there is a whole sector of older women influencers, it's crazy! Unfortunately they are quite hard to reach and in my experience can be very rude. I honesty think we have only had a sale form an influencer but we continue doing the same anyways. Before starting this internship I was very interested in influencer marketing and I truly believed this was something I strongly wanted to work with in my carrier. I have written one of my past thesis in this topic and it always fascinated me as a marketer. This internship has allowed me to put that into practice and explore other areas and I have come to terms with myself that I do not like the practice of influencer marketing but more the science behind it.  I have also been able to talk to others whom have done influencer marketing before, for other companies, and get tricks and tips as to how to find them. It is very interesting, but I find it all very false and you have to basically be "extra nice" and fake to them offering them free things and money in the hopes they are interested in your brand. I tried different tactics because I feel our brand is very unique and not a basic ff brand.  For example I invited them to our shop and have them get free measurements and customize their own garment, but unfortunately it is very hard to get a reply. Due to this we only concentrate on the micro influencers, which honestly do not give us sales. I did though get one with many followers to be interested, around 14k followers but unfortunately my boss did not find her as interesting and we lost the contact. It is quite difficult to have a lot of freedom on a task or project, but then receive the restrictions after you do something.  Aside of this I am on my own a lot of the time, my boss went on a family trip for a week, so I was basically in charge of the whole store that week, also on weekends when I have to go in, I open and close the shop myself. It is quite a big responsibility as I am the only one there. I did sell a scarf the other day from a mother's day campaign I made, so I was happy from that. 

There is a man who comes in the shop and has meetings with us. He is a consultant and runs the web page and campaigns. His name is Zlatan and he comes in every 2 weeks or so for 2 hours and basically shows us analytics. We discuss the web page with him and any bugs or technical issues we might find within.  That is all from now, happy summer to all! 

TIMEOUT Jeans Chapter 3: end of a great experience

Hello everyone,

My last weeks at Timeout have been great, I had a lot of work to do, but everything has been super interesting and involving.

It was time for our suppliers to start sending some new ideas for the SS2020 collection. We have been buried in garments, literally! We have been receiving new deliveries everyday, which implied a lot of cataloguing work, but also a lot of fun: new colours, new designs and patterns and the best part of it was choosing what to keep and what to leave, of course. Most of our clients go for a very simple and formal style, which makes it sometimes difficult for suppliers to reinvent their propositions for the upcoming collections, particularly when it comes to spring-summer, a season that naturally brings bright colours and loose garments. Anyway, a lot of pieces means a lot of choice that enabled us to pick the right garments and put the final collection together.

The next step was organising quantities and deliveries, hoping that suppliers will keep up with the schedule. Some of the pieces we decided to introduce in the upcoming season have been ordered in lower quantities, since they represent a little test we wanted to do with our customers, and lower quantities mean less risk.

Overall, at the end of this journey, my experience has been wonderful. I have been able to deal with the reality of a buying office and managed to understand a lot of complex inner workings. Now that it is over, I am sure I will miss it! I had a great mentor that guided me with a lot of patience and gave me great knowledge throughout these months. I hope to be back very soon.

Have a nice summertime!

Cecilia

Travel @ Asket - Pt. 2

In this blog I want to talk about my experiences outside of ASKET office. I was fortunate enough to visit the Asket’s warehouse in Estonia and also one of their probable innovation partners in Gothenburg.

I went to the warehouse for a 3 day visit which mainly dealt with audits and inspection of a new product Pique polo that were to launch soon. We had seen some issues on the samples that arrived in our Stockholm office for approval and hence the product team decided to go all the way to Estonia to check the production sample.  We did a  100% quality inspection to make sure no faulty products reach to the customers and that Asket stands by its promise to provide quality clothing. It was amazing to see such decisions made by the founders and learn how important it is to defend your core values. I also got to learn a lot about warehouse operations as I had never visited one before.

The second exposure that I got was with a Gothenburg based company that helps fashion companies to transform their physical products into 3D virtual garments. The scope of 3D product development and retail experience is limitless in the future. It was great to see how Asket is investing to be a part of this transformation and how important it is to continuously include innovations in the business to keep thriving in the competition.

Both these visits were quite a learning for me and of course I also got to spend some time with my colleagues outside of work which was quite fun to understand them a little better.

Until next time,

Noopur J

Buyer assistant internship part 3. The last post

Hello for the last time!

This will be my last post from my buying assistant internship period. The last weeks went by so fast and I am so grateful for this opportunity. I have learned so much from my time here, and I find it to be a great advantage that I was trusted with so much responsibility. My internship did not consist of having to do any presentation or project for the company, yet I was entrusted with the job tasks of a buying assistant from the first week. Now I can confidently say that I am familiar with the entire process of product development and how it works in a company. I have learned all the tasks of a buying assistant and got acquainted with the daily job of a buyer. Throughout my time being the main task was to have daily contact with the suppliers through email, and this has been the most advantageous lesson I learned as I am now confident with the specific way of interacting with them as well as the terms that are used in a specific way.

Overall the ten weeks went by extremely fast and this has been a great experience that has really prepared me for my future career within a company. There were several obstacles such as the move to the other floor that were not planned, so it became a hectic couple of months. But now when it is over, I really appreciate all my colleagues and everything that they have taught me. I will miss the business environment and the daily creations of new clothing designs. Hopefully I will return soon!

Have a fantastic summer!

All the best wishes,
from Samanta

Last post!

Hej everyone!

Yesterday I had my final presentation for all decision makers on plastic packaging within Lindex. Time to write my third and last blog post!

First of all, I am really happy to read that you all had a good time at your internships and added value with your research.

It feels really good to round up and summarize everything that I have done the last 3 months. A few concrete actions I've taken since my last blogpost:

1. I organized a status meeting and workshop with our business controller, environmental specialist and CSR coordinator where we worked on the goals and actions I formulated for the new plastics commitment


2. I reviewed the instructions for suppliers on transport and sales packaging and added a section reg. our new plastics commitment and added material requirements


3. I held a presentation for all buying assistants that decide on using transport packaging for Lindex items to raise awareness


4. I developed a checklist that can be used as tool for designing/sourcing/buying packaging and a powerpoint presentation with clear examples. I received feedback from all decision makers on packaging to make sure it is an useful tool for them


5. I created a page on Sharepoint on Sustainable packaging with background information on our ambition and all useful documents

My final presentation yesterday was for 10 decision makers on plastic packaging within Lindex. I explained the need for a shift from a linear to a circular plastic system and shared my findings and recommendations. It was great to also show samples of recycled content packaging and pricing information (thanks to very commited colleagues in our production offices). It was an interactive meeting and I got positive feedback. Now it is time to write everything down! :-) I have one more month at Lindex to help out on some recommendations I've given.

This was (and is) a great experience for me so far. I've met a lot of experienced and passionate people that are open for learning new things. I got a lot of support, responsibility and freedom at the same time. I hope to find a similar atmosphere in future jobs.

Have a lovely summer everyone, see you next year!

Eva

 

Internship blogpost 1/3

Hello everyone,


Exciting and important things happening at the Helsinki Fashion Week! I will spend this summer doing my internship at HFW and together with another intern, we are conducting a research about animal leather transparency and traceability. Since I am studying textile value chain management, I will be focusing on the leather production and supply chain. The other intern comes with a law background and he will be focusing on the legal side of the leather industry. Together we will create an interesting report about the current state of the leather transparency and traceability and we will evaluate what needs to be done in order to make the leather industry more sustainable and transparent in the future.

Picture 1: HFW Instagram

Source:  https://www.instagram.com/helsinkifashionweekofficial/?hl=fi

I hope all are having a great summer!

Kindly,
Marita

Buyer assistant internship part 2.

Hello everybody!!

Thought I check in with you again. So the internship has been intense. The place where I worked experienced a move throughout my time there. We moved two floors down so this was a primary task of mine to make sure that the move will go smoothly. I was working with this move for several of weeks, so it really felt as I have always had things to do. Apart from my daily work tasks of answering l/d and strike offs and managing the sample room, my days were filled with packing all the clothes into boxes and sorting out the clothes from old seasons that will go to the sale. This was fun part though - the internal headquarter sale that happens every other month where all the samples are sold for very cheap prices!

So after I had packed everything into boxes and moved down the entire collection room to two floors down -  it was still around 3 weeks to go until the actual office move. This made my job even more intense, where everytime I had to comment something I had to get the sample ref. from the collection room.

Another thing that was a daily task for me was sitting in the program InDesign and updating the overviews of the collection that we are planning for AW19. During my time there, we already started planning the collection SS20 - and it feels a bit sad that I cannot fully be apart of that because I definitely think it will be a bestseller ;) well at least for the children, since I am at the children's department. But at least I can say that after this internship my InDesign skills have gotten much better, and that's always a merit in the fashion world!

Hope you are all enjoying the weekend now and I will talk to you next week which will be my last post from my time here.

Best wishes
Samanta

An update from Franchetti - part 3: My last week!!!

Hi everyone!!

Wow, this 10 weeks has been fun and worthwhile. Time has gone so fast. It has already gone 10 weeks since I started at Franchetti. I have really enjoyed my time there and I have learned a lot. When I first started my internship here I was looking forward to see how it really is to work as a buyer. My colleagues has been amazing they have teach me alot. They allowed me take part of their everyday work and I feel very thankful for that. I have also had my own projects during this time. I like how they work at Franchetti. They have divided their teams in different product categories. Each team has a manager that both is working as a seller (Franchettis front person to the customer) and as a buyer. They also have buying assistants in the team. The fun part with this is that your task can differ from day to day. One of my projects was to source fabrics from the suppliers for SS20. But I also got another project where they wanted me to put together a moodboard with the upcoming trends for SS20 to our customers so they could get inspiration when they was planing to place their new orders.

I really enjoyed my time here, but now it's time to leave them. I still have one exciting thing to do before I check out. We have this social media project going on and they are going to have a workshop and want me to take part in this. I really looking forward to this. After that i will take vacation and enjoy the summer. I hope you all have had an amazing time at your interships!!!

Enjoy your summer!!!
/Emma

IFS-CE part two

Hi!

As I started writing my report it felt like all the pieces were coming together,
I had a clear pitcure of what I wanted to write and how I wanted my report to look.
However, after talking to Jenny I realized I been goning way to deep into each article
for a structured litterature review. I therefore decided to take a step back and get
some distance to my work. I will keep working on my report during the summer
to both get the result I want and can be satisfyied with.

Wich all of you a great summer,
Evelina