Fashion Careers: A Typical Day for an Apparel Fashion Merchandiser- ¡Un Típico Día En La Vida De Un Gerente De Mercadeo De Moda!

ENG. For the past two weeks I have spent most of my time in Rome, working on the Fall 2012 collections of my company. So, I thought that the best way to explain to you what a product marketing manager or a merchandiser does, would be to tell you about my typical day in Rome. So let’s go through it!

6:00 am – Wake up in Milan and get ready to go catch my flight! I am usually a bit zombie in the mornings so I will most probably press the snooze button… bad idea, because this usually means I will have to run to catch the flight.

7:30am- After running through the airport, I usually make it on time to board the flight!

9:00am- Finally arrive at Rome, and as I wait for the driver to take me to the center of the city where my company is located I begin contemplating my yummy breakfast.

10:00am- Stop at the bar before entering the office building to get some coffee and a brioche… lucky for me the guy at the bar is Colombian so I get to speak some Spanish with him and comment about our country before starting the work day!

10:30am- Fittings starts. We all sit in a room, the designers, the collection director, the pattern makers, product managers and us the merchandisers. Here we see the prototypes of the next collection on the models. We verify fitting, design interpretation currency, and of course, prices. We also try different ways and new interpretations of the styles.

6:00pm- We finally start the fabric-to-sketch which consist on building up the collection… This can take hours but it's actually the most exciting part of the day!

1:00am- Done with the first day … ready to wake up early the next to supervise the work done during the night and keep up working in the fabric-to-sketch.

When I work in Rome I work on the fittings and on putting together the collections by creating a fabric- to-sketch. The fittings are an opportunity for the product development team, designers and merchandisers to see an actual garment style and try it on a fit model. This prototype is usually done in a similar fabric or in the actual fabric that it is going to be sold. This is the perfect opportunity to evaluate the aesthetic quality and fit of the style on a human body. Also, the prototypes provide an opportunity for the development of estimated cost, a process well known as pre-costing. Pre-costing information is fundamental for a Merchandiser during the fit meetings. For example, if it turns out that one of the styles’ cost is very high, the Merchandiser in concert with the designer might delete the style or simplify it. Therefore, during the fitting meetings, my job consists on not only making sure the product meets the quality, fit and aesthetic standards the company usually offers, but I also need to be very attentive to the cost since I will be pricing the collection afterwards.

So my job as a merchandiser consists of managing the development, execution and delivery of a product line. I have the difficult task of combining creativity and business! Describing this day allows you to get to know a small part of my job but as I mentioned before a very important one!

ESP. Las últimas dos semanas las he pasado en Roma trabajando en las colecciones de invierno 2012 de mi compañía. Por eso mismo pienso que la mejor forma de explicarles qué hace un gerente de mercadeo en la moda es explicándoles en qué consiste un día típico mío en Roma. ¡Entonces empecemos!