Lake Tahoe

This week I went to Lake Tahoe for sales meetings for The North Face. We had meetings everyday from about 7:45am-5/6pm. It was absolutely beautiful there! I had never been to the west coast before. A portion of the meetings were with all of the agencies that represent The North Face (The West, The Rockies, The Atlantic, Canada, Latin America, The Midwest, The Northeast, The Southeast, Retail/E commerce, and Asia). In the meetings that included all of the agencies, the Fall 2013 samples would be modeled and explained (such as Action Sports, Youth, Footwear, etc). The other meetings were break-out sessions in which it would just be one region meeting with the specialists of one specific aspect of The North Face. For example, Tuesday the footwear Fall 2013 samples were explained and modeled in front of everyone, and in a breakout session on Thursday we (The Atlantic) met with the footwear department to discuss the upcoming line (colors, pricing, new items, etc.). It was very interesting to be there and really understand the depth that goes along with The North Face. Their professional athletes that test and help to improve their products were also at all of the meetings, and some even gave some speeches (Conrad Anker was one of them), which really makes you realize what an intimate process designing clothes can be (especially those for performance!). These are the same samples that I have been scanning, hanging, and organizing for the past few weeks so it was great to finally see the product being modeled, and then to be able to discuss it (Is the price point appropriate? Does the color combination work? How do we compare to our competition? and so forth). Learning about all of the various technologies that The North Face uses in their products (especially in comparison to their competition) was unbelievable. It was especially cool to learn about since I have a pretty good understanding of textiles, and learning the way they use and manipulate textiles to create a technology is astounding. My week of sales meetings was everything I could have hoped for and more, I had a great time and I can't even begin to explain the capacity of what I learned on this trip.