updated website
Check it out! Let me know what you think.
f3 video
F3 at the COTTON MILL from Roddy Calonsag on Vimeo.
I don’t know if I ever told you guys but I’m the fashion events coordinator for an art and design non-profit called F3 at the Cotton Mill. I run Design Bazaar and co-produce the fashion show. Blah blah blah, watch the vid, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth at least 10,000.
preserve your thickness
I have a friend. His speaking voice is subtle, his karaoke voice is powerful, his writing voice is what I call ‘wise snark’.
He proposed an idea, an offer. It was not completely in line with what I do, but it was still related and it sounded interesting and I knew I’d be working with a good person so I chewed on the idea. I did the dishes and chewed. I thought about all my fingers in all these pies and chewed. And then as politely as I was able, I declined, I was afraid of spreading myself too thin.
He wrote me this email:
“…the notion of preserving creative “thickness” is one of those things successful people do. See, they like to focus/conserve their energies whenever possible. The ones who spread themselves thin are generally self-promoting hustlers, says me.”
His words have been rattling around in my brain for the past couple of weeks. His words have become my new motto. Preserve Your Thickness.
Ambitious people like myself are never satisfied with what they’ve achieved. In their efforts to do/know/be out there/accomplish more, they try to do/know/accomplish everything and be everywhere, taking on any tangentially related project. In corporate-speak, I guess they would call this “diluting the brand.”
I’m not preaching, consider this more a confession. And I am fully aware that this is a very nice “problem” to have, to have enough opportunities from which to pick and choose. I am focusing on picking projects that are about Zoe the designer who also really likes to draw, and not Zoe the jack of all trades, master of none.
It’s 11pm and I’m fielding emails regarding 5 different events spanning 2 months, 2 delicious new projects, and designing yet another competition gown. With each email, “preserve your thickness” rattles in my head again.
I’m an Oscars Designer Challenge Finalist
To the 2 people left who still read my blog,
I just had the most surreal week of my life. Back in January, I entered the Oscars Designer Challenge. Then I became one of 9 finalists. Then I went to LA last Friday. On Saturday, we had fittings and meetings with jewelry people, on camera with Jay Manuel from ANTM. And then on Tuesday, there was a huge press conference with press from all over the world, and we presented our gowns. We were all interviewed. A lot. So many questions. So many flash bulbs. And then I came home. And then went on TV.
If you think my dress is hot, click here to vote for my dress to win! Winner gets their gown worn by one of the Oscar escorts onstage (and on camera) and 2 tickets to attend the Academy Awards themselves!
P.S. Someone pinch me.
ship, then test
Or test, then ship. How much testing?
I re-read this gem from The Fashion Incubator’s archives this weekend and got into a rather heated debate with my software engineer husband about item #3.
>>3. Ship, then test. I disagree with Guy on this one. He thinks most entrepreneurs over perfect their products prior to shipping. In my experience, most designers haven’t perfected their products enough; excessive product features that people don’t value is rare in this business. Still, I’ve seen a lot of paralysis by analysis from DEs. Some of you can’t get off the perfection treadmill to make a first launch. You have incredible laundry lists of “musts” that just aren’t tenable or realistic.<<
Like I said, my husband, A, is in software and his view of things is very different. That being said, he’s already co-founded a still-thriving company years ago and left it to start another, all while publishing a couple of books on software so he might know a thing or two about what he’s talking about. Ha.
Of course no one means to not test at all before shipping, there should be some testing. Pattern corrections, fittings, etc. But when do you just let your baby fly? (I know it’s dangerous to treat your products like your kids but I don’t know anyone who doesn’t slip once in a while.)
A says ship ship ship. Easy for him to say. If software tests poorly with the public, it’s very easy to issue a newer version. You fix the bug and post it on twitter. A few retweets later, everyone’s got the upgrade. Firefox 2.1.0.1.4, anyone? Isn’t your computer programmed to automatically scan for upgrades and notify you? There is a publicly accepted tenet that software is never as awesome as it will be in a couple of weeks/months.
Whether you work in “fashion” or “apparel”, it’s different. Clothing consumers, for the most part, don’t buy a dress thinking it will tide them over until the designer makes a better one. They buy a dress because it looks nice, it fits well, it’s priced well. Garmentos can’t ship everyone a new t-shirt because we discovered the way we sewed that collar doesn’t fit over a good percentage of the large-noggined public. And I’m thinking Toyota is wishing they tested a little more right about now.
What do you think? Am I making excuses or are my points valid? How do you reach the point where you’ve got something good enough? When you run out of time? (And yes, A and I have arguments like this on a regular basis. I’m very forgiving and he has selective memory.)
I’ve been on twitter for a few years now but it only just recently occurred to me to post about it here. Follow me: http://twitter.com/zoehong
some good news
Here’s the Good News: Designers and Execs See Positive Points
The good news revealed here is as diverse as the companies and people surveyed. Some identified modest gains — reorders, healthy sell-throughs, traffic increases at retail — which once might have been taken for granted. Others spoke on a more universal scale, about shifts in consumer psychology. Though points were often highly brand- or retailer-specific, much of the information fell into categories, a veritable fashion “Jeopardy!” of thoughts positive enough to please a latter-day Dr. Peale. Many noted that while the fourth quarter of ’08 was unquestionably horrific, sales picked up, albeit modestly, in the first quarter of ’09. Numerous executives spoke of continuing to open around the world, as Dries Van Noten put it, by choice and not because the decision “was made before the crisis started.”
Perhaps the most significant information gleaned from these interviews is that the industry is holding up a great big mirror to itself. Time and time again, in describing the runaway prosperity of the past decade, people used scatological terminology like aberration, gluttony and laxative, the latter noting the process of major cleansing as necessary and inevitable as it was unexpected. Some said success had bred sloth among the established, who came to think that if hyped enough, anything would sell, and arrogance among the aspiring, who wanted success on their terms, on a platter, right now. (“They made [Michelangelo] copy paintings for six years,” offered Bud Konheim.)
As for the consumer? She had become a witlessly overlabeled glutton, busting out the plastic at the drop of a shoe, careless of sticker or price-value relationship. But no more. People “are getting a more discerning eye,” noted Michael Kors. And both retailers and fashion houses professed new devotion to her worship and to the product that best serves her. To that end, there were numerous shout-outs to the price-value relationship, regardless of price. “Hermès is doing very well,” said Diane von Furstenberg. “Why? I can still use my mother’s bags.”
But the biggest news: Dialogue, sprung from the realization that we’re all in this together. For example, both Sidney Toledano on the fashion-house side and Ron Frasch on the retail side noted the importance of catering to regional markets, knowing full well the compromises involved. Said Frasch, whose insightful comments will run Tuesday, “All the political barriers have fallen away, and all the defensiveness has gone away, because we all know that we’ve got to do something different and better. What could be more exciting than that?”
me-time
I took some me-time/fam-time this past weekend. I spent a little time being a kid in her 20s, which is what I am. Sometimes people forget that.
I drove down to L.A. on Wednesday. I’m really lucky in that my husband gets along with my family and I get along with all the in-laws I’ve met so far. Just before I left, my dad asked us if we were going to come down for Christmas and the husband said “sure” without sarcasm.
(None of my family members have met any of my in-laws. I would need a note-taker at my side at all times to document the hilarity if and when that were to happen. Loud, short-tempered, blunt and yet excessively polite around strangers Koreans meet quieter but still chattychatty Israeli Jews with European manners. Are you laughing yet?)
My dad’s new girlfriend is a very good cook so the husband and I had some really great home-cooked meals. She packed a spare ice chest full of jars of kimchee and various Korean pickled veggies and freezer bags of marinated beef for us to take home. I’m a decent cook but she’s got mad skills.
My dad also prepared this Korean ground bean and powder honey stuff for me. Apparently you dissolve a spoonful in milk to drink and it’s good to treat thinning hair. My dad’s already seen some regrowth and his friend’s lashes scrape his glasses now. My dad knows my already fine hair tends to fall out when I stress out so he bought me a lot of this stuff. I also got his excellent fruit smoothie recipe. Oh, and his aviators. Hee.
Speaking of hair, I stopped by this beauty shop on Larchmont, after stopping by my favorite sushi place for lunch, and *finally* got myself a bottle of Klorane’s dry shampoo. This stuff is amazing! I have thin, fine hair that gets greasy quickly. I shower around 7:30am every day and often looks just-barely-not-quite-disgusting by 7:30pm and of course it goes downhill from there. It’s a white spray but the color disappears against my dark brown hair once you comb it through.
Both my brother and a cousin who is practically another brother to me are deep in college prep mode–the former to start, the latter to transfer. We had some long talks and it was good to get my mind off of my own crap and feel sorta useful at the same time. It was also good to remind myself of how lucky I am to a. know what I want to do with my life and b. be past college. I mean, college was great but the roller coaster of uncertainty, cockiness, fear, and carelessness can only be ridden for so long.
…
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what my next steps will be. I’m usually not so indecisive but I’m going a little crazy trying to figure out what to do. I haven’t sold any dresses yet. It’s incredibly embarrassing. I got a couple of rejection emails, but I think mainly I just couldn’t break into the buyers’ fortress. Should I keep pushing through? Should I just move on to my next collection? I can’t decide whether this collection really sucked mad donkey balls or my business decisions have been poor. I’m pretty angry with myself but mostly I’m just trying to unravel this knot I’m in. Grr. There are not enough hours in the day to just think, ya know? Don’t worry though; my mindset has improved immensely. I’ve gone from, “I’m a farking failure” to “How do I get myself out of the mess I’ve made of things?”. Probably explains the 3 weeks of migraines.
