Reflective Blog: Entry ONE Juicy Couture is a fun and glamorous American brand that was discovered in 1997 by two best friends. Over the years they have become famous for their luxurious tracksuits with their signature Juicy Couture logos. Juicy Couture understands the importance of bringing Couture to everyday life. They specialise in womenswear/ girls/ baby/ accessories/ handbags/ fragrances/ intimates and many more. Behind the success of Juicy Couture lies a successful, dedicated and hardworking team that understand the high service and products they need to deliver to their clients. Since working at Juicy Couture as their Wholesales and Showroom intern, each day is different and there are new challenges along the way. I have participated in a number of various tasks such as:
Packing away the SS13 collection and listing it with the style codes/ descriptions/ colours and quantities. This is a simple way to understand what is in each box once everything is sealed and sent off back to the Regents Street HQ and to the warehouse Unpacking the new AW13 collection and ticking off each garment that has arrived from the invoices list. This is to make sure that each garment has been sent and received safely Co-ordinated and photographed samples upon arrival Editing linesheets to the specific garments that the sales executives have bought Editing linesheets to the specific garments that the clients have bought (after their buying appointments) Working alongside the visual merchandising (VM) team to help set up the new layout of the AW13 showroom. Each season has a new layout depending on the collection and their themes. The showroom is the first glimpse of the collection that the buyers get to see. Everything needs to be visually pleasing and attractive enough to lure them into wanting to see more Forming presentations for the buyers that were unable to come to their buying appointments. (Taking pictures of the womenswear/ Kidswear/ all the accessories). These presentations acted as a selling tool and therefore it had to look very pretty and very juicy! Steaming the garments and making them as visually pleasing as they can be Pricing the linesheets in 3 different currencies: GBP/ EUR/ USD. As Juicy Couture is a worldwide couture label with clients from all around the world, it’s important that we edit the linesheets to fit their currencies Taking pictures of the model (Charlotte) trying on the womenswear collection (these pictures were then put into the Fall 13 presentation) Creating training packs for the department store staff. This would help them understand the collection inside out and give our clients the best service possible Going through magazines and looking for press cuttings for Juicy Couture. These press cuttings needed to be from the best fashion magazines such as Vogue/ Elle/ Glamour/ Harper’s Bazaar/ Tatler. Press cuttings act as a selling tool to promote Juicy Couture to a wider audience and to see how well certain products are doing in the press Checking sale orders and making sure there are no discrepancies Assisting sales executives during buying appointments Re-merchandising the showrooms after each appointment and making it look spotless.
Juicy Couture Industry Awareness
Reflective Blog: Entry TWO Interning is a great way to develop and build on your skills in a professional working environment. Since interning at Juicy Couture I have used a mixture of skills and have used them on a daily basis throughout various tasks I have been given. Here is a list of the skills I have built on and developed since working at Juicy Couture:
Teamwork- working with the other interns has had its ups and downs. When I first started I was the only intern and doing everything on my own was a little challenging at first however once I got into the routine and understood the intensity of it all I liked the challenge. In a team you always have a variety of different people so it can be a little overwhelming but overall working in a team with the other interns was fun and helped make the tasks more interesting. Teamwork tasks involved taking pictures of the whole collection from the womenswear/ accessories/ girls and so on. One intern would be in charge of the VM and the display of the picture and the other would take the photographs and the remaining intern would be the runner getting the garments. Time management- seeing how fast paced the fashion industry is, it was no surprise when errors kept popping up last minute. Not all the samples for AW13 arrived on time for the first few appointments and in order for the VM team to come and sort the showroom out they needed more stock. It was our job to step in at 5pm (bearing in mind we finish work at 6pm) to run to the Regents Street HQ and get more of the double samples that were sent in order to have enough stock on the mannequins and on the rails. As we had a tight schedule we needed to think of the best way to use our time wisely. Working in a team we split the women’s’ line sheet into three and we all had to look for various items according to what was on each of our linesheet. Working in a fast paced environment has enabled me to think quicker and to come up with efficient strategies for each task. Organisation- each day being different means that there’s a lot of different things to do and there is never a dull moment. Being organised is one of my key skills and I found that writing everything down quickly as I went along saved a lot of confusion and questions that I might have had if I didn’t write all the details down. Being organised keeps me calm and collective as I can quickly think about what I need to do first and prioritise my time to certain tasks. Spoken, written & promotional communication: seeing VIP clients such as Harvey Nichols, Harrods, Selfridges, and Sacs it’s important that I make a good first impression as I am now promoting Juicy Couture and will be the first person they meet as I let them into the building. Knowing the collections well was a great way of communicating to the clients and to promote it as much as I can. Spoken communication and making the clients feel welcome in the highest way possible was an important factor throughout the two week period of appointments. Hard work & dedication: in my opinion this is the most important skill of all and this holds all the other skills together. Since interning at Juicy Couture I have dedicated myself to the long and tiring days and always try my hardest to give them the best results possible for all the tasks given to me. Working alongside other strong independent women within the industry has inspired me and motivated me to work hard to succeed and to get to where they are. My enthusiasm and wiliness to succeed has certainly shone through and the girls are always telling me how hard I work, which is a great motivator.
Juicy Couture Industry Awareness
Reflective Blog: Entry THREE Since interning at Juicy Couture I have learnt a variety of new skills along with starting to develop a much more mature business mindset. I believe I’ve developed my mature business mindset from being around so many strong business women who understand what it’s like to need to deliver exceptional service to both their business clients and their consumers. Fashion is competitive and in order to keep your consumers happy you need to adapt with them and be consistent within your brand values and collections. You also need to know your audience inside out to understand what they want and what you are going to give them. Some of these new skills I have learnt are computer skills and learning to use computer programmes that I didn’t know how to use and now I am a confident user of. These programmes are:
Excel: Within the first few days I had to use Microsoft Office excel to create linesheets and lists of the various garments. I’ve also used excel to create linesheets and to create order sheets of the specific stock clients and departments stores have bought. To do this I had their invoices in front of me and I simply had to find the style code/ image/ colour/ quantity they have bought and add it to the list. This is done for every single client so that they can then look over their order sheets and quickly review what they have bought. I’ve also used excel to create pricing analysis sheets. In order to complete this I focused on specific competitors for the Kidswear range. Competitors included: Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Chloe and Little Marc Jacobs. I had to convert EUR/ USD and GBP and using the excel sheets of the currency converters to find the currency total. (Cntrl +f helped me type the product code and all the converted currency types came up). I am now confident using Excel and I am happy I now know how to use it as it is always a crucial programme within the fashion industry.
Adobe Acrobat Professional: this programme was used to create and edit the linesheets and the key looks. The linesheets have every single piece from the collection and depending on the country that Juicy Couture are buying for each collection varies; as they have different audiences and of course different preferences worldwide. Adobe acrobat professional was a simple way of editing the linesheets by selecting the garments I wanted to be hidden and also changing the currencies to create three of the same linesheets but in different currencies (GBP/ EUR/ USD). I also had to edit down the colour selection to exactly what Gemma and Milly (the sales executives bought). I also used this programme to then edit the buyers’ collection that they selected during their buying appointments. This was an even more narrowed down linesheet to fit the buyers’ needs. Furthermore I used this programme to edit the key looks (which went alongside the women’s’ linesheet). I had to present the key looks in the order of deliveries (1-3) and to edit the small titles of the descriptions of what the model is wearing on each page). Growing & developing as a person: an additional skill I’ve learnt is about my own personal development. I have learnt how hard working I am and that I am willing to do whatever I can to help. Towards the end of my internship as the other interns left there wasn’t too much of a workload so instead to go home early I would organise their offices and tidy up and tidy their wardrobes. I feel more confident and now I am not afraid to aim high within the luxury fashion brands within the fashion industry.
Juicy Couture Industry Awareness
Reflective Blog: Entry FOUR Working at the Juicy Couture showroom on Bruton Street as a Wholesale & Showroom Intern has been the most amazing experience I could ever have dreamed for. The three months have flown by and I have adored every minute of it! Everyone has been lovely and there’s nothing more enjoyable than coming to work every day with enthusiastic and friendly colleagues. It’s no secret that interning can be challenging and demanding however at Juicy Couture at their showroom HQ’s they require a lot of help and rely heavily on their interns. This means that the work I complete every single day is extremely content heavy which is great for me as I learn a lot, it keeps me busy and it gives me the right amount of responsibility to enable me to understand and appreciate the hard work that goes into working with a successful couturier. It also gives me new challenges every day which at first was a little daunting however now I that I’m use to it and I loved having such big responsibilities. Having a large amount of responsibilities not only throws me into the deep end; however it pushes me to try my hardest and succeed however it also allows my colleges to gain trust towards me and rely on me through my duties. When I first started my internship all the girls were jokingly stating how by the end of my internship I would know the collection better than them and I didn’t really understand how that was possible however now it’s true, I really do! It just comes naturally. Interning for a buying and sales role has been a pleasant surprise as I would have never considered going into this field, had I not been pushed for time to find an internship. I’ve enjoyed the insight I’ve gained from Juicy Couture and I’d like to gain some more experience within this field to determine if it could be a possible career path. I’ve enjoyed coming into a completely new field, starting fresh and understanding all the job roles involved in this specific buying field. The team at the Juicy Couture showroom has been amazing and I will defiantly keep in contact and try my best to intern there whenever I can. The challenges of the internship have been the long and tiring days. From three full days a week to five full days, it certainly makes a different and sometimes the exhaustion catches up with you. During the market season where the clients came in for appointments that was a little challenging as everyone was stressed and their moods changed (which was completely understandable) however draining at the same time. Overall I’ve loved my internship and feel so lucky and thankful to have been given this opportunity. I’d like to thank Gemma and Milly the Sales Executives for being amazing mentors and I hope to work with them again very soon. I’ve also received a lot of Juicy freebies and I look forward for summer to come so I can show them off! To finish off this blog entry I would like to end on a quote that I love and I believe it sums up my internship perfectly:
“For every two minutes of glamour, there is eight hours of hard work”.
Juicy Couture Industry Awareness