I love parties and social settings however, like most, I hate the dreaded question “So, what do you do?” Not that I mind sharing but I am a fashion merchandiser and surprisingly even in LA most people have no idea what that is. Sometimes I have given a half truth just because it’s easier and I don’t feel like droning on about my job at a party. The whole truth is that a merchandiser is the liaison between design, sales, production, and everyone in between. I give my designer direction and feedback based on retail sales and support my sales team with tools needed to sell the line. If working for a company that has its own retail stores, often the merchandiser acts as the buyer as well. In a past job I teamed with design to put together each season’s line and also put together product buys for the stores. In a lot of ways, it’s like being a project manager. A merchant sees the line through from concept to store delivery and is responsible for staying on calendar along the way. What I really love is the balance of creative and analytic. A typical day might include recapping a selling report, editing line-sheets, approving lab dips, attending a fitting, and updating sales if any deliveries are running late (the current LA port issue is a nightmare!). It’s a fun position if you have a passion for apparel, are creative, like numbers, like multi-tasking, and are good with details. It also gives you exposure to many areas of a company…design, product development, sales, production and even the warehouse (sometimes I’m giving the shipping manager direction on how to pack product to meet certain stores criteria). All in all, on most days, a rewarding job that I enjoy. Now I just need to edit this to a simple one line answer for parties ♥
velvet birdie 