Weissman Interview

1. How did you get into the fashion industry?
Well my father was the CEO of a company named Gimbles and my mother was the head buyer. I worked for the company for awhile. I then went to college for ergonomics which was me designing objects for people. I ended up working with my friend who owns The Design Library and he hired me as a salesman.

2. Is there a lot of math in your job?
Just regular adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Nothing hard.

3. What kind of clients do you have?
 We have really big clients like Marc Jacobs, Micheal Kors, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Banana Republic, Calvin Klein and many others.

4. What does a typical visit look like?
We either go to the client or they come here. We show them what we think they are looking for. Usually they like every one pattern out of ten that we pick. So we have to pick out hundreds of patterns for them to be inspired buy and pick up.

5. How do you decide on what to pick?
They give us some specifications on what they like, and we pick a bunch out that we think go well with those specifications.

6. What is a typical day for you?
I am either here in the office setting up meetings, filling out paper work and picking out designs, or I am in the city or in another destination seeing my clients and showing them the designs I picked and selling them or renting them out.

7. What kind of person do you have to be to do what you do?
You have to be an open, extroverted person that can talk to people, have small talk and relate to others. You have to be friendly and personal, but also be down to business and get the job done. You have to be a good listener to figure out what exactly your client wants and do the best you can to get them what they want.

8. How do you know what is coming up in trends?
I know what the trends are from my clients. They pick designs that will be for clothes 2 years from now. So if Banana Republic requests stripes and small plaids 2013 menswear, I know that those designs will be in and whats happening in 2013.