Author: Yelissa Vasquez

Categories
Academics

Internship

Course Description

To earn credit, work experience with a company in the fashion industry, related to the student’s interest area was required. Students applied their formal education to professional situations in order to ease the transition into the work environment. Students kept a journal of their work, submitted written analysis and met periodically to discuss their experiences.

Personal Branding

To prepare for the job market, students worked on showing their value to future employers by creating a personal website to demonstrate their abilities and personal brand image. The career mind map, personal SWOT analysis, personal mission statement, goals, and objectives were a few of the strategies used to build the students personal website and brand.

Yelissa’s e-Portfolio/ website is the result of all her hard work during this course. In addition to being a Brand Marketing and Events intern for Hatch Collection, of course! Most of the assignment such as the mission statement, objectives, logo creation, etc. are in use on other parts of the website. All assignments that helped in creating Yelissa’s website will be linked below:

Career Mind Map

This career mind map assistsed Yelissa in visualizing what she wanted to do in the future. By completing this, Yelissa determined she would like to work for a creative business that does their best to contribute to the community and environment.

Personal SWOT Analysis

This SWOT analysis helped Yelissa determine what she does best and what she needs to work on. By factoring in the current state of the economy due to Covid-19, Yelissa was able to observe all her options for pursuing a career during this time.

Brand Image Creation

To clearly define who she is, Yelissa tackled creating her personal brand image. With the guidance of her professor, and a few well written personal branding books, Yelissa described her her story of being a girl from the Bronx with large scale dreams.

Color Symbolism Related to Brand image

Yelissa used color and images to give her personal website viewers a deeper understanding of her character. This method mad everything in her eportfolio have purpose.

Site References

Here are all of Yelissa’s citations for any images and text mentioned.

Categories
Academics

Global Sourcing and International Retail Trade

Course Description

Economic perspective of textile products, production and global sourcing, with emphasis on United States fashion industries.
With the globalization of the apparel industry it is critical for students to understand the ways in which historical events and economic and political policies are shaping and changing the industry. This course is developed using academic rigor, knowledge integration, and critical thinking to enhance the learning experience of senior students. The course is designed to integrate economic, political, and historical influences on the global production of textile and apparel products, emphasizing the United States’ fashion industry. In addition, discussion include varying retailing models in industrial and developing countries throughout the world. Enhancement of the learning experience will be accomplished through reading assignments, intensive writing assignments, and class discussions.

This course taught Yelissa the global scale of fashion. By taking this course, she gained the ability to look the bigger picture rather than only small details.

Here is Yelissa’s course project:

Regional Textile and Apparel Outlook

For this assignment, students worked in groups to research the textile and apparel industry in different regions of the world. To complete the project, each group had to identify the demographics of the area, the history of the region’s textile industry, how the textile industry is now, and how it has impacted the people and land of the region.

Yelissa’s group decided on Mumbai, India. Below is a summary of their research:

High Street Phoenix - Contact
Figure 6. Full view of main entrance for High Street Phoenix Mall

Mumbai, a cosmopolitan city, has a populations of over 22 million ‘s and size is roughly 223 square miles. It’s first cotton textile mills were created by Parsi (Persian descendant) cotton merchants in 1854 and thrived for a decade. Due to different industries in the area developing technology faster and a vast amount of textile workers going on strike, mills started to close their doors, leaving the 600 acres of mills and worker housing empty. As of recently, these historic mills are either being renovated into luxury malls (e.g. High Street Phoenix) or luxury housing, and some are in the process of becoming textile museums to commemorate Mumbai’s history. For those still working in India’s textile industry, work is strenuous and wages are unlivable. Many workers take out loans to survive, but paying the bank back is difficult as well. Lack of safety regulations are another cause for worry and one of the reasons behind India textile industry disasters such as Rana Plaza.

For more detail, Yelissa’s assignment is linked below:

Regional Textile and Apparel Outlook for Mumbai, India
Categories
Academics

Trend Forecasting

Course Description

This course is an overview and analysis of current color, fiber, and fashion trends, as well as their impact upon sales forecasting. Students research, analyze, and develop fashion forecasts related to specific seasons in the apparel industry.

By taking this course, Yelissa learned how to look at large amounts of data to create a prediction companies can use to stay current and profitable

Here is Yelissa’s course project:

Trend Forecast

For this project, students formed groups to create their own trend forecast for a garment of their choice for either women or men. Since trend forecasting is done in advance, students created it for Fall 2020. The trend forecast needed to contain an analysis of what the trends for that article of clothing was now and what it used to be to understand what it will be in the future. Based on this research, the students explained how and why the fabric, styling, color, fit and silhouette of the garment changed and designed what the garment would look like.

For this project, Yelissa’s group choose to create their Fall 2020 forecast report for women’s blazers for work and casual wear. To predict these styles, the group noticed more media attention and protesting for women’s rights. By aligning the progression of the women’s movement, strong/iconic figures of America with past and current fashion, Yelissa’s group created the following report. Yelissa was in charge of designs, design history, and silhouette. Each style is summarized below.

Doyenne design
Business Cool design
Cowgirl Chic design
Sheer Simplicity design
Disco Fever design

The Doyenne

  • Meaning “a woman who is the most respected or prominent person in a particular field” (Lexico, 2018)
  • Draws from the 1980’s padded power shoulders women adopted from men to look more dominant in the work place
  • Silhouette: Inverted triangle shape maximizes the size of the shoulders, making the waist look smaller and more feminine. Unusually long sleeves are the new symbol of power, demonstrated by Vetements
  • Fit: Belt accentuates feminine figure and is a style borrowed from the 80’s
  • Style: Worn similar to the 80’s working woman for professionalism. To be more casual, the Doyenne could be worn with jeans to look street style worthy
  • Color: 2020 is the year for presidential election. In the past, bold and vivacious colors were seen during these years and will continue to be so alongside tranquil blue symbolizing the communities wish for piece. Colors for 2020 are Dynamic Violet, Buoyant Blue, Gentle lavender, and Soft Cornflower

The Business-Cool

  • Inspired by the youthfulness and rebellious style of the leather blazers from the 1990’s
  • Silhouette: A combination of the 90’s formfitting casual work wear and the longer length blazers from Fall 2018
  • Fit: Leather is typically used for biker jackets. The fit was changed from the masculine and boxy shoulders to one with lightly curved shoulders and a tapered waist fr a more feminine look
  • Style: Unlike traditional blazers, the Business-Cool (BC) faux leather fabric makes the wearer look cool and chic. Looks great with a slit dress, jeans or slack
  • Color: Similar to the 90’s, Fall 2020’s leather blazer will be available in neutrals to not push the envelope. The style will come in Grains of Sand, Sailboat, Cloudy Skies, and Calm Waters.

Cowgirl Chic

  • Designed in response to growing cowboy trend which stems from the 1940’s American cowboy films
  • Silhouette: Resembling the square shape of cowboy blazers, Cowgirl Chic adds to it the classiness of the 3/4 sleeves from the classic Chanel suit jacket
  • Fit: Structured shoulders give the illusion of shoulder pads. It is possible to incorporate buttons into the design but it will be frequently worn open without buttons
  • Style: Instead of going full on cowgirl, wearers will deescalate the look by wearing it similar to the Chanel suit
  • Color: Creams and browns will be popular because of their relations to the cowboy uniform. Almond, White Chocolate, Cinnamon, and Mocha will be the names of the Fall 2020 colors

Sheer Simplicity

  • Influenced by the sheer clothing worn during the 1960’s in response to women’s need for freedom and independence
  • Silhouette: Single breasted blazer with one button creates subtle hourglass shape
  • Fit: relaxed yet showing the natural of a women’s waist due to light fabric
  • Style: Worn with a silk dress and heels for a night out or with a blouse tucked into cropped trousers
  • Color: Following its retro heritage, the Sheer Simplicity blazer will come in bright hues called Morning Glory, Pink Peony, Bluebell, and Lotus

Disco Fever

  • Inspired by the 1970’s when marginalized people of America fought for equality. The youth used disco to escape problematic atmosphere of the times
  • Silhouette: Changes from Fall 2018’s rectangular 70’s inspired blazer. Disco Fever will have a natural hourglass shape by contouring to the chest and lightly flaring out at the waist
  • Fit: Form fitting with full length sleeves to create a subtle yet sexy blazer
  • Style: Worn with simple blouse and favorite jeans with the Disco Fever draped on the shoulders
  • Color: Sequin will be featured in eye catching colors such ass Electric Blue, Prince, Disco Ball, and Bumblebee
Here is the full blazer report for Fall 2020

Categories
Academics

International Retailing

Course Description

This course covers key issues affecting international retailing with consideration of the global consumer’s welfare. It provides the student with a comprehensive view of retailing and an application of marketing concepts in a practical retail managerial environment.

By taking this course, Yelissa knows how to do conduct throrouh research on countires that may be useful to conduct business.

Below is a summary of Yelissa’s term assignment:

Regional Analysis

For this assignment, students worked in groups to research a region of their choice and observe the relationship amongst the region and other countries of the world. This means taking note of countries culture and the way they live their lives, economic standing, and policies related to business.

Yelissa’s group chose Southeast Asia for their research paper. Southeast Asia consist of eleven countries: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Figure 5. Map of Southeast Asia (Geographic Guide, 2020)

Most of Southeast Asia has a tropical climate and conduct business mostly in agriculture (rice in particular). Their second dominant industry is in textiles, although it is important to note that Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, and Laos do not have a secondary industry, but their is a rise in the use of technology for businesses in the region. In Southeast Asia there are more than 574 million people who follow Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and others having little to no religion such as Singapore or the Philippines.

In regards to labor laws, most of these countries allow people to work at fifteen years old earning $0.84 an hour to $244 a month. Not all employers follow the minimum wage laws, if their country has it. The countries in the textile and apparel industry usually produce and export silk, cotton, and synthetic fabrics. The highest textile producers are Singapore and Vietnam and the lowest are East Timor and Laos. East Timor imports most of their clothing, but there is a small sector of Tais cloth weaving. Laos only does cut, make, and trim job.

To import and export merchandise, it is easier to be part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which all except East Timor are. Involved nations agree to do business mostly with ASEAN nations and minimize tariffs for them as well. Before importing or exporting, some nations require specific licenses for the items they are sending. When vendors are ready to send their items, they must provide documents such as the commercial invoice or bill of lading and product license if their country requires it. Upon importing and exporting, goods are subject to inspection.

The link below is a PDF of Yelissa’s group research:

Regional Analysis for Southeast Asia PDF
Categories
Academics

Product Development

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the study of product development from concept to consumer. Students learn how research is conducted in the fashion industry and how it is ultimately reflected in garment design. Trend cycles, consumer behavior, social, political and economic influences are discussed as influences on trend development.

By taking thsi course, Yelissa demonstrates the abilty take customers into consideration when creating a product.

The term assignment for this class is below:

Collection Development

For this assignment, students broke into groups to create a product from idea to “conception”. This meant finding out who is the target market, designing the product, who are competitors with similar products, the fabrics used, the cost for making the product, and the retail price.

After brainstorming, Yelissa’s group decided to create fall and winter coat brand called Haute & Hoot. The brands mission was to add a bit of laughter to life.

Crop Bubble Puffer Coat
The Faux Fur Coat "Super Cozy"
The Deconstructed Trench Coat
Inner Shells

Haute & Hoot coats were designed for students in their 20’s who like to be fashionable, warm, and incorporate a bit of laughter into their day. The coats were all designed as 3 in 1 coats: An outer shell and inner shell that can be worn together or separate. To allow customers to control the amount of warmth they want with their cute outer shells, Haute & Hoot offers inner shells named Cozy (warm), Toasty (warmer), and Fuego (warmest). Recommended outer and inner shell combinations have fun names like “The Oven” and “Roasting by the Fire” to help brighten up the wearers day.

Each outer shell is made using different materials such as Nylon, Primaloft, and Silnylon while the inner shells are made of different amounts of Primaloft. To make the coats ( meaning outer and inner shells), the cost is between $30 – $100 retailing at $75 to $215.

For more detail, here is the Haute & Hoot Collection Development Assignment
Categories
Academics

Merchandise Planning and Buying

Course Description

Provides an overview of modern inventory control systems and sales records. Topics include the retail method of inventory, operating statements, techniques of planning, and methods of figuring mark-ups, markdowns, open-to-buy, and terms of sales. 

Because Yelissa completed this course in four weeks, she demonstrates her ability to easily learn new concepts.

Below is one Yelissa’s assignment:

Six Month Plan

In order to demonstrate their knowledge of retail math, students were instructed to creates a six month plan using the figures provided. To have a complete assignment, there needed to be an open to buy and percent markdown for each month as well as the average monthly sales and average monthly merchandise on order.

Here are the numbers provided to solve these calculations and how Yelissa solved them:

Here is the PDF version of the 6 Month Plan
Categories
Academics

Textiles

Course Description

This course is an introductory survey of today’s complex and consistently transforming fashion and textiles business environment. A survey of fashion wholesale and retail environments will be explored to offer students a clear understanding of various textiles types with an emphasis on its interaction with fashion merchandisers, buyers, and retailers. Students acquire basic knowledge of fibers, yarns, cloth construction, finishes, and embellishments necessary to determine quality and to make appropriate fabric choices for contemporary fashion apparel and home furnishings.

By taking this course, Yelissa is capable of doing any job delaing with textiles, research, or heavy analysis.

Below is Yelissa’s textile term project:

Comparing fabrics and fibers

To demonstrate our knowledge in textiles, the class was instructed to research a history making garment from a movie recreated in two different decades (before 1980 and after 2000). The goal was to identify the garment purpose in the movie and how the material used for it helped accomplish that goal.

Figure 3. Olivia Newton John in Grease (1975)
Figure 4. Julianne Houghe in Grease:LIVE! (2016)

Here is the Sandy Olsson in Grease and Grease LIVE PDF

For this project, Yelissa chose the character Sandy Olson, the good girl from Grease (1975) when she strutted over to the dark side in her dark new leather garb! Luckily, the live television remake called Grease:LIVE! came out during the start of the Spring 2016 semester so she compared it to that.

The research was tough, but Yelissa discovered that Olivia Newton-John (Grease 1975 actress for Sandy) actually wore too tight leather pants while Julianne Houghe (Grease:Live!’s Sandy) wore skin clinging nylon pants.

The main purpose for Newton-John ‘s pants was to be sexy, but Houghe’s bottoms were a lot more accommodating and allowed her to look sexy and perform with no worries. As actresses and dancers, these two had completely different experiences in this iconic outfit which is is now a symbol for ‘bad girls’ and sexiness.

Categories
Academics

Visual Merchandising

Course Description

This course is designed to provide an exploration of visual merchandising by considering the product presentation in the retail environment.  This course explores the theoretical and practical use of in-store environments, lighting, special effects, fixtures and product placement as a form of visual communication intended to convey a specific message about the fashion brand and to influence the consumer.  Topics include the creation of specialty and department store displays,   the design of visuals for walls and windows, professional presentation techniques, and the effects of color, music and lighting on consumer behavior.

By taking this course, Yelissa is well prepared for not only the laborious and artistic work of a visual merchandiser, but also any work needing innovative, analytical, and thorough workers.

The following projects helped Yelissa gain and present these skills.

Color Theory Assignments

Time to get to Mixing! For this assignment, students needed to demonstrate their understanding of color theory by hand mixing primary colors with black and white to create the following pieces:

Here are the four components for this assignment :

Koi Pond Color Wheel
Primary Color Relationship
Monochromatic Orange
Monochromatic Brown

Press the tabs to see how Yelissa did each piece!

Koi Pond Color Wheel

This color wheel was inspired by the elegance and beauty of the Koi fish. These fish symbolize good fortune and prosperity making it a perfect motif for my first portfolio work.

Koi fish do not naturally come in the various colors they are known for. They are breed to create a range of hues. The same can be said for creating most of the colors of the color wheel. By carefully combining the most natural hues (red, blue, and yellow), I created Secondary and Tertiary colors while staying true to the simplicity and grace of the Koi fish.

Primary Color Relationship

This piece shows the relationship between the primary colors red, blue, and yellow. Yelissa created this piece by using the very tip of her round paint brush to carefully paint small circles in the shape of abstract triangles. For the yellow circles, she added a blue dots in the middle which made some circles look a bit more green. The red circles had yellow added to them making them appear orange at times. As for the blue circles, they at times looked purples because they had red added to the center.

If someone were to look at this piece from afar, instead of looking like red, blue, and yellow it would give the illusion of being orange, green, and purple. This illusion shows how easily these three primary colors make other colors.

Colored Monochromatic Swatches: Orange

For this assignment, students had the opportunity to use the color of their choice to create a monochromatic color scheme. The most popular colors throughout the student projects were blue and red since the paint swatches were readily available. Yelissa, on the other hand, decided to use orange not only because it is a beautiful and bright color, but also she was curious about how it would look when mixed with black.

Yelissa started first by mixing in white a bit at a time. She painted several rectangles to have a better match with the paint swatches she would be matching to. As expected, the colors got lighter, less vibrant, turning into tints of orange.
Things started getting interesting as Yelissa added black to the pure hue. This vibrant orange hue turned from brown to green the more she mixed in black. Yelissa noticed when the hand painted orange shades were put in order they looked extremely similar to an orange fruit drying out.

Brown Monochromatic Swatches

For the brown monochromatic swatches, things went more as Yelissa expected. She made sure to paint the black, brown, and white swatches first to not disturb their purity. Once she started adding white to the brown paint, the hue started turning lighter, becoming less vibrant. When Yelissa started adding black to a fresh puddle of brown paint, it became more shaded the more black she added.

Design Strategies

Creating visual displays or any piece of art means knowing how to use the elements and principles of design. To test our comprehension of these strategies, students used them to compare a store retail display and a famous art pieces.

Figure 2. Ralph Lauren’s Spring 2017 Window Display

Figure 1. Picasso’s “Reading at a Table”
Elements and Principles of Design Paper

After spending hours on Madison avenue looking for the right window display for this assignment, Yelissa saw Ralph Lauren’s Spring 2017 window display. Orange, pink, army green, and cream were the first things to catch her attention. The mannequin placed right in the center, surrounded by leis petals to highlight the mannequins femininity.

Yelissa decided to compare the window display with the “Reading at a Table” a painting by Pablo Picasso. Though seemingly different, Yelissa noticed the main subjects of each compositions were women, their beauty, and femininity.

With the quote below in mind, Yelissa Started her assignment.

 “If the principles of design are the instructions, the elements are the tools.”

–Meg Reid

The Press Kit

Making a press release requires visual presentation skills and analysis similar to visual merchandiser. Using the presentation techniques learned in class, students created press releases for recent designer collections. Packaging, invitations, creative director bio, and articles analysing the finale ready for the likes of Vogue needed to be inside the kit.

For the press kit assignment, Yelissa chose Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2017 collection. Yelissa believed Sarah Burton, the brands creative director, had a way of making clothing look like a dream yet so edgy! The pring 2017 colection was no exception. Yelissa researched the collection heavily, watching the show several times, reading every article until she (almost) became one of the people behind creating such beauty! Here’ s the result of Yelissa’s hard work:

Alexander McQueen Garment Before Finally
Alexander McQueen Collection Finally
Biography, Company History, Media Feature
Look Book Cover
Inside Look Book
Press Kit open
Spring 2017 invite closed, front of Press Kit in background
Spring 2017 invite open

To correctly portray the brand, Yelissa Handmade the:

  1. Folder to mimic the invite
  2. Wax closing for the invite
  3. Skull and key chain
  4. Page designs for the biography, company history, etc.
Copy of Alexander McQueen SS17 Press Release

Categories
Academics

Introduction to Fashion Industry

Course Description

This course focuses on the organization and operation of the fashion industry—how fashion brands(apparel, accessories, and home fashions) are designed, manufactured, marketed, and distributed within a global context. This course captures the dynamics of the fashion industry, with its various components, by emphasizing the changing nature of the industries technological changes, organizational changes, and changes in the global nature of the industries involved.

The following project demonstrates Yelissa’s marketing research and creative skills:

Marketing Mix Analysis

For the term project, students had to analyze a brand of their choice marketing mix. To understand the brand better, students collected information about how the brand started and who the target market was. Using this data, students created a mood board for the brands fall/winter 2017 collection.

For this assignment, Yelissa choose Zara as her brand because it’s a global company everyone should know! Here’s a summary of her project:

Mood board description

For the Fall 2017 collection, Yelissa put together a mood board wit the city of New York in mind. Wearers of this collection would be trendy city dwellers. Walking around with coffee in hand and enjoying the changing season is their favorite pass time. Their second is getting cozy at home after a long day at work with a warm drink. The collection would feature cashmere, Burberry like plaids, soft knits, and colors from city fall nature walks. This mood board is called “A walk through the city”.

Zara, the first brand of Industria de Diseño Textil (INDITEX), did not start as a retailer when it came to be in 1974. The brand first came into the fashion world as a manufacturer called Confecciones GOA, created by Amancio Ortega Gaona, Antonio Gaona, and Rosalia Mera (Amancio’s wife). After 12 years of successful business, Confecciones GOA became a women’s fashion retail store due to a major order cancellation. Zara used their old own factory from Confecciones GOA to manufacture their clothing and later on created another factory due to expansion and high demand.

Fun fact: Zara was the second option for the global retailer. The original name they wanted was Zorba (named after the movie Zorba the Greek) but a bar nearby already had the name.

Now, Zara has more than 2,000 stores all over the world! The brand is famous for doing almost nothing in terms of marketing. Zara relies on store window displays and customer word of mouth. Because of this, Zara’s target market is mainly social and professional women and men who like to keep up with trends. Since the store rarely has promotions, the brand feels more exclusive, only the trendiest know of it. Those who want to purchase affordable basic and fashion forward pieces are welcome to shop at Zara.

For more detail, here is Yelissa’s Zara project.

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