Wednesday

Yeah hump day again! This morning Britt "manufacturing/design assistant" and I worked in the design room which is at the same location as the showroom. The design room and showroom are at a different location separate from the offices and the Bondi store. Since Britt will be joining Camilla on her overseas trip in India I helped her pack all the sample pieces that she is taking to India. This is the India trip that I helped in organizing weeks prior. The majority of the Camilla garments are manufactured in India, so Britt needs to take all the sample pieces with her for the new first ever winter collection. Typically Camilla has only done resort, holiday, & Summer 1,2,3. So this new collection that they will be monitoring the production on in India will be the first winter collection. I also worked on cross referencing design images for the cut, print, and embellishment references that will be used for the new collection. The design images and the sample garments is what Britt will be using to show the manufacturers in India as examples of what she wants for the winter collection. After packing all the garments that needed to be taken with Britt we realized that the suitcase was 21 kilograms over the weight limit. So then I had to unpack half of the suitcase and ship the remainder in a box through Harrison Logistics. Harrison is the freighting company that Deva and I had met with a few weeks prior for better international shipping. Just like yesterday I had to compile an invoice for the sample garments for customs use only to include with the shipment. After the box was shipped off to India I worked with Britt in making changes to the India schedule that we had made weeks ago. The specific changes that we made to the trip should make it run smoothly.

Tuesday

The day started off with compiling invoices for customs use only. The invoices were for sample pieces that our agents in London had and were being sent back to us. Since the pieces are just sample pieces and not garments that we are going to sell we record them as $5.00 instead of $150.00. This is done on shipments of sample garments for customs. Sample garments are not as important as shipments of actual garments that are going to actual retailers. After that Deva “international sales” and I went through an order from Alteena a spa that sells Camilla garments on consignment. We were double checking to see if their records matched ours as far as how many garments they had of ours, how much they had sold, and how much they still have not sold. Deva and I had to go over DDP and DDU for all our international invoices and shipments that we worked on today.

At the end of the day I worked on the press folders again. I added the most recent press to the folder. The press folder is used as a marketing tool for the buyers who are unfamiliar with the Camilla brand. The buyers can then see how popular the brand is and the amount of famous people who wear it.

Monday June 28 another week at Camilla's. Today some how just flew by first it was 11am then it was 4pm in no time. This morning I attended a meeting with Deva "International Sales" with Mickey Muae ( not to sure on how to spell her last name) . Mickey is a native Australian who lives in L.A. and is Gerard Butler's personal assistant. She happens to be a huge Camilla fan and wears kaftans around celebs in L.A. She wants to help Camilla target more celebs in the U.S. Since Mickey happens to have connections and has worked with several U.S. celebs in the past she thinks that she has some ideas on how to get Camilla in the U.S. celebrity market. She had a list of celebs that would be interested in the Camilla style and their contact information. She even had Oprah's contact info. I was impressed!:) AFter the meeting with Mickey I organized folders of three different collection look book shoots. I organized Soleil, Gelato, and Babylon. Again Babylon is the latest and was on the runway in the beginning of May and is available to view online, but won't be in stores until August. Gelato is old here, but hasn't even gotten to the U.S. yet. For each look book shoot folder there is the photographers information that was used for the shoot, the run sheet, quotes/invoices, models info., inspirations (hair, makeup, & poses), and the overall debrief on how the shoot went and what could have been different. Having all this information organized and handy will making it easier for putting together the next look book shoot.

TGIF!!!!! Today I arranged the garments on the store floor by color, so a little touch in visual merchandising today. Then I attended a meeting for channel 9 with Sarah who is in charge of marketing and PR. The meeting was for channel 9 doing a week of filming in the office for a reality show. The show will be about an Australian who is applying to be Camilla's P.A. So in July there will be filming done in our office for a week. Not sure how I feel about that. After the meeting I spent the rest of the day working on my SWOT analysis of the Camilla brand. I was collecting data from all three Camilla stores, national sales, and international sales to find the % increase in net sales over the past few years. I was researching other SWOT analyzes that were done in the past to help me get an idea on how I am going to set up my analysis for the Camilla brand. So for the most part I just worked on research for the SWOT analysis that I am conducting for Camilla.

This morning I hung all the one off pieces on racks with the Camilla hangers in order by their stories. I used the the look book to help me organize them into the stories. The task of putting them in order took a long time because there were about 100 or so garments that had to be organized and put on hangers. The reason they needed to be on display today was because we had the famous Christine Anu come in to pick one off pieces for her wedding. Christine is a famous Australian pop singer/actress. She was in RENT, Moulin Rouge, The Matrix Reloaded, and Judge of Australian Idol. What Christine really wanted was Camilla to design a dress specifically for her, but to source and assemble for just one garment instead of several garments of the same type would be very pricey, more than $10,000. So what Britt and I did was show Christine all the pieces and had Hannah model some of them. From there Christine chose some pieces and decided that she wanted them altered in a certain way to put her own twist on them. So, overall Christine chose garments for her bridesmaids and herself since they are all one size. Britt and I took down notes as far as all the changes that she wanted and will have them changed to Christine's liking. The meeting lasted 3 hours, which was a big chunk of my day. Then after Christine left I went with Deva "International Sales" to show garments to Shawni a lady who sells on her own at trunkshows or to boutiques in Lebanon. Shawni went through the garments that we had in stock and chose what she liked. Then Deva and I went through and put all the ones that Shawni chose and tried to organize them by color to give Shawni a better idea of what she picked. Since Shawni will be taking all these pieces together and displaying them on a rack at trunk shows there should be some kind of theme throughout her rack. We organized them by color and style to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Shawni ended up purchasing 80 garments. So it was a good day for Deva and I.

Finally, I wrapped up the spreadsheet of 500 hotel/resorts for the hotel folder. The folder that I have been working on along with the potential stores/boutiques the past few days. Tomorrow I hope to finish up the store folder. While Camilla was in L.A. she was approached by Rachel Zoe. Rachel commented on how she loved Camilla's work. So Camilla called us and asked us to send some things to Rachel. So I sent a letter, 2 scarves, and our latest look book that features the "Babylon" collection. Babylon was in this past fashion week May 3-7 and is featured on the Camilla website, but won't be hitting the stores until August. Then I went up to our showroom to get some "one offs" to bring to the store for the one off sale that is held for the crazy VIP camilla fans. One offs are pieces that were pulled from the collection that were never put on the runway. They are one of a kind that will never be made again and that no one else can buy, similar to couture. The VIP customers think of it as artwork. The one off pieces are also 25% more money than the normal kaftans that are sold at the store every day. I brought about $60,000 worth of one offs from the showroom to the store today.

Starting out today I continued to work on the research for the potential stores and hotel resorts like I have been doing for the past three days. It is an ongoing project that will be continued on even after I am done working on it. I will be rapping it up for the most part tomorrow. I won't have all of it done, but after three to four days of research on potential sites to sell the Camilla product it's time to get some experience in a different area. Today I also attended a meeting with the manufacturing assistant "Britt" on importing and exporting our products through a Harrison Logistics. Harrison Logistics is an international freighting company. Then after the meeting I worked a little bit with Hannah the retail stylist. We worked on putting a style guide together for the Kaftans. Hannah is also a model, so we had digital pictures of Hannah wearing the Kaftans that we added descriptive styling notes to for the styling guide. The styling guide will be used to market to the customer. The guide had Hannah wearing several different Kaftans in a variety of different colors, prints, and cuts. For each Kaftan we described about six different ways to wear it or style it for different occasions. For an example we would say, "This blue navi tie string kaftan can be worn on any casual summer day or converted into a cap sleeve dress that would be perfect to wear when attending a summer wedding."