Week 2 - Day 1 - New Designs

The sign off for new products last Thursday had been a success, which meant there was a much calmer atmosphere in the office this week. The first call of the day was a meeting with the buyers and merchandisers in briefs and those in bras to bring together their ideas for the products they would be collaborating on. The designers were present to listen to the feedback and begin the process of designing further products for the collections.

The bra team, picked out the predicted best and worse sellers of the briefs for SS11 and began to talk to the designers about the idea of bras that would match up with those briefs to create best selling, basic lingerie sets in plain colours.

The product that seemed to be causing the most excitement was the new shape wear selection. This time, as well as the invisible, seam free, extreme hold that makes shape wear famous, the design team have decided to make a print for the briefs that make them seem more of a sexy, piece of underwear, rather than something to be hidden away and hastily removed before anyone else has the chance to see.

The head of buying was really interested in this idea at the review and was enthusiastic about the idea of creating a bra to match, therefore producing a sexy and wearable lingerie set.

Another thought that was brought up during the meeting on Thursday was the idea of a Valentine's knicker. The design team, presented their initial ideas on this product and there was a huge difference in the interpretation of this idea. One designer had gone for a flirty, yet classically sexy set, whereas another designer had gone down the more novelty route, with decorative bikini shaped briefs with slogans on the bum.

Both designs were great in different ways and the buyers and merchandisers were enthusiastic about bringing Little Miss Naughty back as a character on the novelty knickers.

In the afternoon, I sat in on a meeting with Valtex who supply hosiery for Jasper Conran. It was one of the easiest meetings that I have been a part of so far. Everything is going on schedule with absolutely no problems.

After the meeting, I headed into the lingerie cupboard and began the enormous task of organising the lingerie sets rail. Each set had to be kept in a variety of sizes, all with the gold seal tag on the reverse to confirm that this is the product that had been approved by the buyers. This is to present any discrepancies and means that the buyers cover their backs if there are any difficulties down the line. However, this takes up a lot of space in the cupboard which has to be sorted and changed at the beginning of each season. It was my task to sort through which lingerie had to be kept and which could finally be removed from the cupboard.