On Christmas Day 2014, I was in bed at my dad’s place in Boston with my sister, looking dead. (I was the one looking dead, not her, in case that’s not clear.)
I was thinking ahead to the trip I would be taking 2 days later to Chicago to tell 50+ people, many of whom had worked for my company for decades, that they no longer had a job. This was one of my undercover priorities stepping into my new role as head of strategy and product development a few months earlier.
For months, I had to deftly juggle being effective in my external public-facing role so that I wouldn’t lose credibility while orchestrating the outsourcing of peoples’ jobs in the background. Almost immediately after taking my job, I had taken a trip to India and the Philippines to meet with vendors, flying to a new city every day. Three of these flights were overnight flights, all taken in coach over the course of a week. Needless to say, I was somewhat weary, though determined to do my very best.
My 5-million mile yard hard stare worried my sister, as we talked about my struggles. We settled on fashion as a potential avenue, a field that might revive me. I started to plan out a clothing line I would start. A Pinterest board was born. With zeal, I started out on this endeavor and ended up meeting some designers and pattern-makers in NYC to help me realize this mini-dream / escape plan. But with the additional responsibilities that cropped up and my frustrations with the early meetings I had in NYC, my grand plan slowly (and yet kind of quickly) fizzled out.
When I left my job in May, people asked me what I wanted to do. My best answer was “something creative.” In a few cases, I was more specific and answered with a shrug and a question mark – “fashion?” That’s how I was hooked up with an up-and-coming label in London to help launch their Spring/Summer collection and discuss the possibility of me becoming the 50/50 business partner.
The experience started out well. I volunteered to “jump in.” I hadn’t quite realized that jumping in would really mean swallowing me whole. On day 1, I arrived and immediately started pitching in with some email list and Fashion Week invitation work. It had been a decade at least since I had done this level of data entry and database management work, but I was happy to contribute, and within hours, I had completed what probably would have taken anyone else there days to do manually. Little feelings of coming back to life, or work life. Right, I do know how to do something, as basic as it is. That was a satisfying feeling.
Fabrics were swirling around me. Interns were working around the clock and had been for months. FOR FREE. Work was done and redone. Embroideries. Stitching on jewels. Pieces were still coming together. One of the days, I spent costing out the garments basic on the patterns and usage of the fabrics + adding the grading (a function of the number of pattern pieces in the garment) + factory charge. Then I came up with wholesale and retail prices. Simultaneously, there were photo shoots, hair and makeup tests, stylist consultations, investor meetings, model castings for the Lookbook and show, operational prep work, garment-making, investor meetings, and the rich and famous coming in for dress fittings or wedding dress discussions. Music and food meetings. All of this was all going on at the same time.
The set designer arrived, and she was put to work retouching photos due to short staffing and the electricity going out in India, where the retouching was supposed to be done.
The designers parents were both there from Vancouver, staying up late into the night stitching shoes, taking care of her son, making sure we were alive-ish, and running to copy shops and hotels. We would bob from work to semi-professional social calls out to industry birthday parties or dinner parties with her private clients.
Eventually, my spirit started to wear thin. Disillusionment kicked in. Am I doing all of this to sell dresses to the rich for over $1000? Am I working this many hours for this to be my contribution to the world?
I saw the experience through and saw everything come together at the show. I even gave an interview.
In the end, I am extremely happy and grateful to have had this short window and crash course on the industry. It brought closure and a reality check to my romanticized vision of what it would be like to work in fashion. I still want to create my clothing label, but I think it has to be done in a different way. Although the industry is notoriously hard-charging and cutthroat, I refuse to believe that this is what is needed for success.
