Week 4 @ Freedom Rains

With the design team back from Europe, things have picked up a bit around the office and everyone is motivated to get ahead on the Fall '16 line. It definitely feels more normal to have everyone back and working in one place again, though I was excited to see the results of the trip. The designers returned with thirty sample garments that we'll be taking inspiration from in regards to fabric, trim, silhouette, etc. We had a long meeting with the entire office discussing the success of the trip, modeling the samples to everyone, and showing the takeaways of each piece. Although they largely bought coats from brands like Moncler, Max Mara Weekend, Vivienne Westwood (which we sadly cut apart to take fabric samples from) and Versace, but also dresses from Stella McCartney and Jill Sander. Our lead designer explained that any dress can become a coat if you just use your imagination, which is so clever and I never would have thought of! It was definitely fun to try on and photograph all the samples, as well! I think having all of them in our showroom gives a more solid vision to what next year's line might look like.

I'm also really excited because the floral print I've been working on is going to get produced into a fabric, which will obviously be turned into a coat later on! This is definitely something I will be adding to my portfolio and I feel like a small piece of me will be going into the collection. I also get to work with the mill that will be developing the fabric and handle the order, which is a great learning opportunity. This week we've also been finalizing which fabrics will be used for the line, which is a bit strange because the designer's haven't really started sketching. In a way, we're pretty much working backwards.