A Look into the Industry

My neighbor Richard Weissman has been apart of the fashion industry for a while now. His family brought him in and it started out not being his favorite thing. But through the years, he ended up back in the buissness.

He is the president of  The Design Library that holds over a million textiles from early 1700's to the present day. He has many famous clients such as Marc Jacobs, Yves Saint Laurent, Micheal Kors, Calvin Klein and many more. These clients ask Richard for textiles that inspire them. For example, if Banana Republic Mens is planning their Spring Collection for 2013 and they need inspiration for patterns and fabric, they call Richard or one od his colleagues and ask for him to bring big and small plaids, white on white patterns, checkered textiles and such. And Richard will show up at the meeting with hundreds of textiles he picked out that he thinks Banana Republic will like, and buy.

What I got to do in late December was go to one of his client's meetings, and sit in on the process. That day Richard was seeing Calvin Klein and had brought many textiles for them to look at. I got to observe what they liked and didn't like, and all the comments that came along with it. They ended up purchasing 12 textiles out of 400 or so. What Richard always says is "they are only going to like 1 out 10 patterns you pick", which is why Richard had to be so prepared.

I really enjoyed seeing the process occur and I loved seeing all the different patterns. Some patterns I thought were more fitting than others for what they had wanted, but obviously my opinion didn't matter to them. Richard has to be very openminded when picking patterns for that exact reason. The client may say they want only big plaids,but if you show up with medium and small plaids they might buy them too.

The Design Library is all about inspiration and individuality. Richard picks fabrics that HE thinks will make a sale, his colleagues pick fabrics that THEY think will sell, and the clients picks fabrics that THEY think will work.

The entire process was a great experience overall.