UPS.MODELS.AND SWAG!

SORRY SORRY SORRY. I skipped a post yesterday because I was so tired. I will try and do a double post to make up for it. :)

December 29th- Wednesday

Yesterday was a Extremely busy day!

A few days ago I had said that I was alphabetizing all of the clothes on the return racks in order for them to be shipped out later.

Well that day came... yesterday we did returns from 9:30 am to 6:30 pm

The job of returning clothes can be pretty repetitive. The process goes like so:

1. Go to the return rack and grab a piece of clothing.

2. look at the label and see who the designer is

3. Go to a website called thelookbook.com (a huge database that contains addresses to pr offices, fashion designers, stylist, etc. It is basically the yellow pages for the fashion industry).

On the website you type in the designer name and find out where the garment needs to be shipped to.

4. create a shipping label using the contact info through ups or the messenger service.

5. Take pictures of each garment

6. pack up garment in box or envelope

As you can see it is a long process! Between the interns and the fashion assistants we must have done this at least 150 times! I wish I could have taken a picture of all the UPS envelops and boxes waiting in the hallway to be picked up it was INSANE!

At the end of the day I was really tired and was ready to pretty much pass out for the night.

Here is the outfit I wore that day....

After doing returns I have to say that I have definitely learned a lot about the industry. I have learned about different PR companies and different brands that are out there.

I was even able to call the famous PR office -- Peoples Revolution (the PR company that is featured on "The City" with Whitney Port).

:)

BTW:

I got my first free swag item. It is only a Forever21 skirt but hey at least it is something. When I got it I found out that it was not a small but an extra small. It is a little tight so maybe I might give it away or something.

December 30th- Thursday

Today was a less stressful day...

We had finished up most of the returns and the closet was starting to look in better shape.

This morning I had to organize the collection of tights by knits, prints, etc. The task seemed pretty easy. I was able to get it done in a timely manner and was able to put them away. But when my supervisor came to check my work she said that some things were not correct and that it needed to be fixed. I felt a little bad because I thought I had done a good job. I was worried that maybe my boss was annoyed at the fact that she had to pick up after me.

I really just want to make the best impression and do a good job in the short time that I'm here. But I shouldn't worry too much, we all make mistakes and we just have to learn from them!

I got to talk to one of my other supervisors, a fashion assistant and she was telling me and another intern about how she got to where she was.

She majored in Graphic Design and found her way to magazines. She interned a various large magazines and was lucky enough to find a job right out of college in her current position!

Her story has reinforced my knowledge of the power of connections in the fashion/publishing industry. This particular fashion assistant found her job through a mentor who worked at one of the publications she used to intern for. Her mentor heard about an opening and passed along her information.

Every person who I have talked to seems to always get their positions in this manner. It is all in the power of NETWORKING!

The other half of the day was spent helping out one of the fashion assistants with the models and pictures....

The magazine often has open model castings where people come in and auditon to be in the magazine, or the modeling agency sends a few model pictures to the magazine.

All of these pictures get filed away in large closets.

Since we were kind of doing some spring cleaning me and a fellow intern had to go through all of these pictures and decide which to keep and which to throw out!

This was a very eye opening assignment because we had to just use our best judgement to decide which models would make the cut.

whether they were too fat or too skinny

Not pretty enough

Not the right look for the mag.

at first it was a bit hard to have someone's fate in your hands so to speak. but after about an hour honestly every model starts to look the same. I don't think I could ever be a model, that industry is WAY to critical.

Some of the pictures even had notes on them from editors that would say "nose too big" "bad teeth" "Not pretty"

But it was nice to know that the magazine also takes into account weight. We didn't keep models who were too skinny!

Today was a short day because it was the day before NYE so we got out around 2:30ish :)

Ill end with some pics...

(No outfit post today. I got lazy, and I wasn't really wearing anything special anyway)

These are pictures of the amazing view from the office. The entire office has glass windows as walls so they offer spectacular views of NYC

*These are just pictures from the morning time but you should see it at night when everything is lit up, you would just DIE

Sexy or Messy?

*this is the amazing view from the roof of my apartment building!

(in the picture on the left, the green and red lit building is the empire state building)

Today was the second day as a fashion intern. It was extremely busy in the closet and I am really exhausted but I really wanted to update the blog before the end of the day.

I started my day in the closet the way I had left, I had to finish reorganizing the return racks. I had to put the rest of the clothes in alphabetical order. Luckily the other two interns were able to make it to the office today so the job went a bit faster.

The other two interns are really nice. They are both from New Jersey! They are so lucky that they live so close to Manhattan, they could intern anytime during the year.

This internship is the first big internship for all three of us so I think it will be a great learning experience for everyone and we will become good friends. :)

After slaving away with the return racks we were able to finish by mid-day. The next task that I was assigned was to organize the sunglasses and jewelry in the accessories drawers. That was a pretty easy job compared to the last one and it was cool to look at all of the different brands.

Tom Ford. Prada. DVF.

While I was organizing the accessories the other two interns were assigned a task. They had to go outside and ask 100 men a question for a survey. They had a picture of a celebrity and they would show the pic and ask the guy if her hair style was sexy or messy.

Back at the office I was able to talk and learn more about my supervisor who is one of the fashion assistants. She shared tips about the fashion industry and also about how she got to where she is today. It was really interesting! I'm glad that I was able to talk to her personally and form a connection. She is super nice and is someone I would like to learn more from.

The two other girls finally came back from surveying random guys but they still didn't have 100 people yet. So the fashion assistiant suggested that I give it a try. I was excited to be given a new task and to also have a chance to get out of the office.

But I quickly found out that this job is much harder than it seems. Since my office is pretty close to central park I trekked out there because I thought it would be a lot of people. But a lot of people would avoid the girl with the clipboard. (go figure...)

So It took me about an hour and a half to find 70 men to answer a simple question. But I felt really accomplished after I got the job done!

After returning to the office I was given another organizational job where I had to clean out one of the storage closets that holds all of the plastic bags, shoe boxes, etc. THAT TOOK FOREVER.

But I was able to finish and my supervisor was impressed. :)

It was a looong day. but I enjoyed my time there and I learned a lot.

Tomorrow we will be doing even more with the returns because we want to clear everything out by the end of the day. I think the fashion assistants are trying to organize the closet as much as possible before the beginning of the new year where everyone is returning from vacay.

Here is the outfit I wore today....

Things I learned today..

- start looking into maybe interning for PR

- explore Brooklyn before I leave

- I learned more about a fashion assistant's job

- I learned that Duane Reade is crazy EXPENSIVE (NOTE TO SELF:MICHELLE PLEASE STOP SHOPPING THERE!!)

And to end on a good note..

*I needed to by a shower cap and the only one they had at the drugstore was this lovely pink number. (and the thing cost me 10 stupid dollars, it needed its own photo shoot)

First Day

Today was the first day of my internship!

I started my day by making my way to the office via the subway. Unfortunately because of the bad weather many trains were delayed and I was left waiting for about 20 minutes. Luckily My train came just in time for me to get to my office at exactly 10 am.

The office was virtually empty because a lot of the staff were still on vacation. Two of the other fashion interns were not able to make it today because of the bad roads.

One of the fashion assistants introduced herself and showed me what I would be doing for the day..

Most fashion magazines have hundreds and hundreds of clothing samples in their closet. Designers and PR firms lend out samples to different magazines so they can use them in their publication.

A fashion editor will request many different items and only a select few get featured in the magazine. The rest of the clothing samples are organized and sent back to the designers.

So today I had to go through all the "Return" racks and organize each clothing sample in alphabetical order based on the brand name.

I have to admit I was pretty overwhelmed when I was first given this task because there seemed to be a never ending pile of clothes and I was the only intern who showed up today.

But after about an hour things started to get better. I created a system that worked and I was able to get a lot accomplished!

The job I had for the day was pretty tedious but it was still really cool to be handling the clothes. Many of the samples were things that will be in store in spring and summer of next year so I am one of the first few people to see what will be selling in a few months :)

I am excited to see what they will have me do tomorrow. I hope that the other two interns come in tomorrow. I am excited to meet them and become friends!

Here are two pics I took of the fashion closet....

After work I was pretty tired. I had been putting things in alphabetical order from 10:30 am to about 4ish.

I went to a TJMAXX to check things out and look what I found...

Valentino?!?! Chloe?!?!

@ TJMAXX?!?

I thought this was crazy, and pretty cool at the same time. ONLY IN NEW YORK.

After that I went to an H & M to just look around.

I found the famous Lanvin for H&M fur coat. I thought that was weird that they had one in stock seeing as how fashionistas waited in line at 6am when the clothing line came in stores a month ago.

And it was my size too so I HAD to try it out.

>>>>>>

I ended up just buying two things.

- A beautiful beetle ring that could go with pretty much anything

-and a fur scarf

Pics below...

They say that if you make it here you can make it anywhere....

I am finally here in New York City and tomorrow starts my first day at my internship!

For those who don't know...I will be in New York City for a month interning at a major women's magazine. I will be working in the fashion department as an intern.

*I don't really think it would be a good idea to really say any more details about where I'm working because I don't know what the rules are for blogging and I don't want to get in too much trouble.

I am a bit nervous. I have never done an internship this BIG before and Ireally want to have everything be perfect (I know this is nearly impossible, but a girl can dream!)

I spent the last hour trying to figure out what I want to wear on my first day.

Here are a few pictures of the outfit I will bewearing tomorrow...

I flew into New York yesterday. I am so lucky I did because NYC has been hit with a major blizzard and a lot of flights have been cancelled today :(

Well....

I can't wait till tomorrow! I'm sure I will have some exciting and fun stuff to tell you.

Until Then,

Michelle