Making Things Interesting

There are so many companies making jeans. I like discovering those who inhabit interesting workspaces, use clever machinery and have a well-considered process. Enter Roy and Tender Co.  I'll let the video below speak to the amazingness of Roy's set-up and Tender Co.'s website is worth clicking around to learn more about how they add local value to their product.

(Mind your ears, delicate flowers, this is real life.)

There's another video on Roy's website that shows off the vintage machinery a little better but I can't seem to upload it so just click *here* to see it instead.

Internships

How about an internship?  Here's one at Zac Posen. I'm not in New York but I like reading through the job descriptions and daydreaming. Ahh, for a bigger city and for that city in particular...

Inspiration

If you have 15 minutes, watch this video. It tells the story of Imogene + Willie: how a couple of 'grandkids' grew a denim company in Nashville. They have an amazing workshop and store and produce in-house with 11 employees.  All that awesome and their jeans look fantastic -they custom tailor their finished jeans to fit each customer.


(Thanks for the link, Sarah and Ben. You send such great inspiration!)

Yes: Thread Usage Formulas and Needle/Thread/Fabric Weight Charts

I absolutely adore truly helpful and intelligent customer service. There's a simple kindness implicit in making things easy for customers. Who wants to be scolded for not following proper ordering protocol? To that end, here's a post from Seth Godin's marketing blog titled, ''The Shell Game of Delight'.

Perhaps today's blog entry could be filed under 'things I could have learned in school had I only taken Fashion Design and not something else,' but it's really more about companies making helpful information easily available to potential customers. As such, I was impressed by, and thankful for the information I found under the 'Technical Tools' tab at the American & Efird website. There I found all things relevant to thread purchasing: thread consumption formulas,  a fabric weight/typical thread sizes/typical needle sizes chart,  and a thread size comparison chart.

Did you know there were approximately 250 yards of thread in a pair of women's jeans?

Seam Classes

I've been daydreaming about different production possibilities and wanting to brush up on technical sewing knowledge. I can see this table of seam classes from American & Efird (found via Fashion Incubator) coming in handy!

The Price of Cotton

I knew that the price of cotton had gone up but I didn't realize by how much. I was looking around on the Afingo Blog and found this post on the rise in cotton prices. Here's a short excerpt:

"The National Cotton Council of America reports that the average world price of cotton has increased by 89% from October 2009 to October 2010. Worldwide cotton prices have skyrocketed 117% over just five years ago. Blame a perfect storm of extremely high demand and weather-wreaked crop destruction for the situation."


This might not be such a bad thing. There are many fine fibers out there. Wool slacks, anyone?

Truth Plus and Afingo

Two good finds on the internets today -Truth Plus and Afingo. I love really good industry blogs and Truth Plus is definitely one. Afingo I found through today's Truth Plus post on production practices.

 “Afingo.com is the first online platform to merge social networking and fashion industry sourcing in a stylish and functional interface. A virtual showroom, essential news aggregator, and easy-to-use manufacturing resource, Afingo.com is a vibrant community of designers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers all connecting and interacting in real-time. From sketchpad to factory to boutique rack, Afingo.com provides a unified platform as compulsively addictive as fashion itself.” (Afingo.com)