As you read in my last post, I have decided to push my premiere line into S/S of 2011. I am currently rushing to source fabrics so I can receive them in plenty of time to plan. I don’t want to run into the same problems as I did before, when time was working against me.
I have narrowed my options down to ten fabrics and I’m crossing my fingers I’m not too affected by the increase of cotton prices.
My next step will be to finalize my accent fabrics and make sure I am incorporating key looks for the spring and summer seasons.
I know it’s a long ways from now, but what are you looking forward to most for S/S ‘11 that you didn’t see this year? Fabrics? Colors? Textures? Please leave your comments below, I would love to hear what you have to say!
-Katie
Sorry for the lack of posts! I have been extremely busy at work (Back to School season starts soon), working on Fifth&Brannan… oh, and vacationing :)
Because being a perfectionist is part of who I am, I have decided to push my line into S/S instead of rushing into F/W. There are a few things I would like to tweak before I send the line to production. This was not my first choice, but I felt that releasing in July would have been a poor decision.
Now, with having changed the collection to S/S, I am going to have to source new fabrics. It’s a nice change to search for cotton twills and lighter weight fabrics, but I am running into MOQ (minimum order quantity) issues. I have found that most twill suppliers require a 5,000-10,000 meter minimum. Being a smaller company, this is a big problem.
I have searched tirelessly for a good supplier of cotton twill. Because there are so many colors to choose from, I may have that working in my favor. Most suppliers will let you choose from a stock collection, which means much lesser minimums. Thankfully, I still have my shirting supplier locked in and I will be using them for my S/S collection.
For those of you that have been following our fittings, the sleeve issue has been resolved! The first and second fit samples were twisting because of the pattern and an innocent mistake made by my seamstress. After the pattern was corrected, my seamstress was still sewing the pleats of the sleeve incorrectly. This is what caused the sleeve to twist in the first place. However, just by looking at the sleeve after completion, you would have never been able to tell there was a sewing error. The first thing that always came to mind was the pattern.
Once I picked up my third round of fit samples, I took them to my tailor to have buttonholes sewn on. Industrial buttonhole makers are very expensive. So, for someone like me who doesn’t use one on a daily basis, using a tailor for these minor tasks is necessary if you want a professional looking buttonhole.
While I was at the tailor, I asked for his expert opinion on the sleeves. He instantly knew what the problem was and assured me he could fix it. He explained to me that the pleats were incorrect, and on one of the shirts the fabric wasn’t cut on the straight grain. I may be the one to blame for that… It’s hard cutting out fabric at 3AM and not making a mistake :)
I suddenly felt at ease that my samples were in his hands. After a few anxious days of waiting, I had the patterns back with neat, professional buttonholes and two PERFECT sleeves! I am so thankful I was able to turn my third fit samples into my fourth ones without going through the entire process again.
Below, you will see what was my third round, but became my fourth and final session after a quick fix. I am very pleased with the outcome, and I hope you all are too!
Next, we have some ideas for our pants, you can look for that in an upcoming post. In the meantime, please leave your comments below! We’d love to hear what you think about the fit, the styling details, our process or even this blog in general. We read every comment and enjoy hearing from you all!
Lately, things have not been going according to plan.
When starting this whole process, I imagined I would go through two fittings, three at the most. I never thought I would run into this many problems. Today, I began the process of my FOURTH fitting. Why is this a problem? Well for starters, it costs a lot of money to have samples sewn, especially when you are having three samples sewn each time. With this being my premiere line, I am operating on a very strict budget.
Aside from money, a lot of time has gone into these samples. Valuable time. I have a career outside of Fifth&Brannan that I dedicate 40+ hours to per week. My seamstress is the mother of three children, and my pattern maker also has a full time job. It’s safe to say that our time is precious.
I am not sure where the problems with the samples started. Was it faulty pattern making? Sewing? Or was I just too tired when I was cutting the fabric out at 3AM? Any of these could be the reason we are moving into our fourth round of fit samples. I’m not happy about it, but I must say I’m glad I’m not rushing this process.
Because I pride myself on finding the best fit for this brand, these fittings are key. I would rather take the time to correct these mistakes instead of throwing my hands up. The hardest part of running into problems like mine is to see your release date slip further and further away.
I have a list of things that still need to be done, but because I am doing everything on my own, those tasks seem to get pushed to the bottom of my list. Once I feel 100% about my samples, it’s off to purchase my fabric, complete my production samples, find models, and begin the fun stuff!
I hope to see a photo shoot in my near future :)
I would like to start by saying thank you to each and every one of our troops for all that they have done for us and many others. To all of my friends who are not home today, we love you and hope to have you back soon and safe!
This holiday weekend has been so nice! I was able to spend time with my family, get away from the city for a little bit, and RELAX! However, I did squeeze in a fitting with my good friend Eric (@ericEsilva), the newest addition to Fifth&Brannan’s fit models. Eric has the perfect measurements for our smaller sizes, and I was very relieved to see the samples fit his body so nicely. There is still an issue with the sleeve, but that was expected since these are the same shirts from the last fitting.
With all of the running around this weekend, I forgot my tape measurer at home, so I had to use Eric’s utility tape measurer. Not the most accurate.
Darn those sleeves!
