Recent Trip To NYC

Every year the fashion merchandising program at Marian Court College takes a trip to New York City to meet with designers and sales representatives from many well known fashion brand name companies. 

This year I was lucky enough to participate in this event and go on the trip.  Although it was quite possibly the busiest and quickest two days of my life, it was so amazing and eye opening.  The director of the fashion merchandising program organized and took myself and 10 other classmates on the two-day one-night trip. 

The first week of May is market week for the companies we visited so the showrooms we were fortunate enough to see were preparing for buyers from many department and specialty stores to go in and see what the designers have made for the upcoming seasons. 

Our first stop was the Fossil showroom where three representatives from the company spoke to us about their daily roles and what the company is all about.  Hearing the different roles and perspectives of these representatives helped my classmates and I really figure out what role we want to play once we enter the industry. 

Next we headed to a sample sale in the Garment District where designers sell past seasons sample garments for up to 70 percent off of the retail price, we were in heaven! On our way to the sample sale we ran into the infamous Betsey Johnson who was on her way to her office, we were all so starstruck!

The next showroom we visited that day was M Missoni which is a branch of the full line Missoni owned by Valentino.  Here we met with representatives who explained what the company is all about and we were honored to see samples of fabrics that are in the works to be used for next season which was totally exclusive!  They also explained the huge unexpected sell out of the Missoni for target line and what the future holds in store for the company. 

The next day we visited the Metropolitan Museum where we saw art from many time periods we have studied in our fashion history class which actually made history very interesting.  Women's Wear Daily, a daily fashion newspaper (my dream job), was our next stop which is a part of Fairchild Publications (where our fashion textbooks come from). 

We met with Catherine, who is in charge of styling the models and directing photo shoots.  We were even admitted into the fashion closet where they hold all of the garments and accessories for the daily photo shoots, one word, amazing! The last showroom we visited was Nanette Lepore, a high end designer who is sold at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom. 

We got to see all of her up and coming designs in the design room which blew our minds.  While we were touring the office, we ran into Nanette herself! The trip was an amazing opportunity as we really got to see the daily jobs of people we admire.