Measuring your garments before a fitting is an absolutely essential step of apparel development. Especially if you’re working on knit or stretch garments, you want to capture the garment’s natural, flat specifications before it ever goes onto a body. This will give you a few pieces of crucial information. First, it will give you an opportunity to capture the closest measurements to the pattern as possible. While the garment is flat, folded and pressed, it will best represent the pattern that made it and the sewing quality of the factory. Second, it will offer you the chance to double check your factory’s measuring methods. If you’ve measured an area of a garment that’s significantly different from what your factory measured, it gives you an early opportunity to catch the discrepancy and make sure they understand how you want to measure your pieces going forward. Many brands will utilize a “How to Measure” manual when working with factories. It helps to standardize the ways that everyone is measuring a single garment or garment type. It also helps to clarify and explain your Points of Measure (POM) to every team member. When I use How to Measure Manuals, I code each POM to refer back to a Graded Specification. For example, all of my tops measurements have a code that begins with a “T.” T01 through T30 are built into my standard Graded Specs, which then go hand-in-hand with the diagrams in the manual. These POMs are also arranged in a logical order, so that measuring your garment will go as quickly as possible. All front body POMs are listed first, from top to bottom of the garment. Then, I flip over my garment to measure the back before moving on to measure sleeves and details. This may seem unnecessary, but if you’ve ever measured up to twenty garments in a day, you’ll appreciate the speed and ease this offers. Here’s an example of my first tops POM and its description: On the diagram, we then use lines or arrows on a flat sketch of a shirt to visually represent these words. Visual tools for factories that may not use your language as their first language is often crucial to helping your overseas teams understand and utilize the tools you provide. When measuring, it is ideal to stand at a large table where you can move the garment around, flip it over and fold it as you need. When I was an intern in Technical Design back in 2006, I spent the majority of my every day measuring garments. I wore comfortable shoes and had a cushioned floor mat to relieve the stress of standing in one place for up to 5 hours at a time. After months at this job, I started to feel like I’d done enough measuring to understand how to craftily cut corners or sit down while measuring, and I got a little lazy. Let me tell you, it shows when you don’t measure properly! I was reporting to my managers that poorly fitting garments were due to incorrect measurements, when it ended up being my lazy measuring style that was the problem! I learned quickly that nothing is worth cutting corners over. Even the simplest of tasks done incorrectly can damage a process or a product. Don’t let yourself fall into this trap! This is one of those tasks where proper posture and technique can actually make or break all of your next processes. Capture all of your measurements as you go down the measurement sheet and bring your prepared details to the fitting with you. Calling out any areas that are not measuring properly up front will help the team to decide how to proceed and communicate back to the factory after the fitting. For example, if you found that the chest measured too big on the garment, but it looks great on the body, you can tell your factory to keep the measurements “as on sample” and maintain for the next proto round. You wouldn’t be able to do that if you didn’t measure the garment correctly, first. Measuring every detail of every garment is time consuming and can feel very tedious, but know that it is such an important part of the apparel development process. If you cut corners, it will only lead to mistakes, miscommunications and issues down the road. Make it easier on you and your team, and take the time to do it right the first time. I promise it will be worth the effort.

Throughout my career as an Apparel Developer, I’ve traveled a great deal of times for my job. Starting in 2010, I took at least one trip every year to places like Istanbul, Medellin, Hanoi and many trips to the Guangzhou area of China. I found my breaking point in 2018, which was the year that I did fourteen trips in twelve months, heading home to see my husband between every single one. I think it was June of that year when I broke down in the middle of a sandwich shop, just so exhausted and jetlagged. I completed all of my commitments that year though, and I’m glad to know where my limit is now. Traveling for work in my profession is extremely different from traveling for pleasure. Visiting manufacturers and suppliers to hold meetings and meet overseas vendors in person is crucial to building a rapport with these partners. Sometimes, we’ll wake up in the morning and drive two hours to our first destination, so we can hold meetings and have lunch with one group. Then, we’ll get back in the car to drive another hour or so to hold afternoon meetings with a second group, who will then of course want us to join them for dinner. The people are always extremely hospitable and treat us with respect and kindness when we are in their home cities. They love showing us a good time and helping us to learn about their culture, language, food and drink of choice. We are constantly considering our words and actions to make sure we’re not accidentally behaving in a way that would be offensive in a foreign country, and you pretty much always have to be “on.”   I love traveling like this. I thrive in the challenge of squeezing the most out of these long days abroad, so that I can build relationships and help our businesses thrive together. I’ve learned more about other customs and societies through my co-workers than I could ever dream to learn on my own, and although it can take a toll on your body to travel around so much, I’ve never regretted a single trip. Packing for a work trip is also wildly different from packing for a leisurely vacation. Even if you work in a casually dressed environment in your home city, traveling abroad to negotiate costs and build professional relationships is always better received in business attire. I’ve experimented with packing all sorts of different business outfits to maximize my luggage space, daily choices and “just in case” options. Believe me, getting invited last minute to a local Mexican fútbol match would not go over well in a business suit. Being prepared and having those extra garments can make or break a trip. A few of the biggest mistakes I’ve made traveling for work are always about forgetting something crucial, and I hope that I can prevent you from making them, too, by sharing my miscalculations here: On my very first trip for work, which was to Istanbul, I forgot my laptop charger. My boss ended up helping me get it overnighted from our US office to Turkey so that I could actually work the rest of the week. It felt like such a rookie mistake. On my latest trip to Italy, I forgot my wallet. MY WALLET! I had my passport in a separate luggage pocket, so I was still able to fly. But my coworker had to put everything on his credit card for us and I had no way of doing any personal shopping while I was there. (It was just before Christmas-time. I was so bummed to not just do all of my family gift shopping in Italy!) On a different trip to Italy, I forgot to bring my outlet converters, so I had no way to charge my phone, laptop or tablet. Luckily, our business meetings were held with partners who shared any spare converters with me and some of the hotels provided a loaner. But I ended up seeking out a local electronics store to find my own after a couple of days. To this day, I have two key practices to prevent future mishaps: First, I use a business travel checklist that a friend and I made back in 2014. It’s honestly only the trips when I forget to pull out the list that something is forgotten. And I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring my way through these mishaps, but they are certainly disruptive. On top of that, seeming forgetful or irresponsible is not the right impression you want to make on a business trip. Trust me. Second, I have created a “travel drawer” in my closet, where I keep all of the essential items for business travel all in one place. All of my travel toiletries, packing cubes, outlet converters, wireless chargers and even decks of cards all bundled together for easy access. I am working on putting together a free downloadable version of my “travel for business” checklist to offer to all of you on my website soon! I’ll be sure to send out an update as soon as it’s buttoned up and ready to go.

When I arrived at Specialized in 2016, the team was getting ready to start development of its Fall 2018 outerwear collection. Calling it the “DEFLECT” assortment, we were emphasizing the wind and water resistant features of each garment. We were also putting plans in place to work with some of the best fabric manufacturers in the industry: Polartec and Pertex. At the time, the cycling industry was just starting to find ways to partner with these best-in-class mills, and Specialized was pioneering new ways to use their technology in apparel. As the team’s new Technical Design Manager, it was my key responsibility to create the patterns for every new garment on the line list. And with the designs presented to me, this was no easy task! Unique seam placements and paneling on each jacket and vest created challenges for me. At the same time, I relished in the difficulty and was determined to figure out how to make each pattern fit and function properly. This was really my first big test at the company, to prove that I knew what I was doing when it came to pattern engineering. If I created the initial patterns and the first samples came back looking terrible on our models, then I was immediately going to lose clout and credibility. Luckily, our first prototypes arrived and looked good. They were definitely not perfect, and needed a little tweaking, but it was a solid start. This was then when I really got the opportunity to shine. From the beginnings of my own patterns, I was then able to display my fitting and pattern revision skills throughout a number of fit sessions. Building trust with my team at this time in my career was unbelievably rewarding and exciting. I felt like I had found a company that I could call home for many years to come. After our first round of revisions for the Deflect Collection, second protos arrived with vast improvements. I could not have been more pleased with the results, and those pieces are some of the highlights from my time at Specialized. I still see cyclists around town wearing those lightweight, soft, yet durable pieces when the sky is a little gray or dreary. And whenever I get on my own bike to head out on a chilly ride, those are the pieces I reach for as well. The high-end fabrics and features, paired with the precise fit that we created together made for some staples that I know have been loved by riders across the world. As consumers got their hands on these pieces, we also started to see a good number of reviews come out! Here are a couple that I keep in my portfolio: Road CC Review of our Deflect SWAT Jacket Bicycling Magazine Best Hi-Viz Vest 2020!!

Throughout my career, I’ve encountered several instances where customers ask us for our garment measurements, to understand what size they should be buying. On every one of these occasions, we’ve had to point them back to our body measurement charts though, as these two sets of measurements are very different from each other. Body Measurement Charts are created by every apparel brand to convey their available size range to its target consumers. Typically, they’ll list out the chest, waist and hip circumferences in a small, informative chart somewhere on their website. The customer can click into an image of the size chart while they’re shopping, to make sure that they’re purchasing the correct size for their body shape. It’s important to follow this type of a measurement chart, as each brand will have put together their ideal size range for its audience. As an apparel brand, it is their responsibility to ensure that your size is consistent across all of their garments. So if you are a Medium in a t-shirt from them, you should also be a Medium in their sweaters, shorts, pants, etc. Companies that do not adhere to these guidelines tend to find themselves in trouble with product returns and poor customer loyalty very quickly. Garment Measurement Charts are a tool that we use in the apparel industry to communicate with our manufacturing partners. Laying flat on a table, we will measure an apparel piece at its many key locations to help guide our pattern makers and sewers to create the fit and look that we want. Garment measurements will always be bigger than body measurements, unless you’re purchasing a compression garment. Even a tight fitting garment needs to have a slightly larger circumference than your body, or it will feel constrictive when you wear it. This is the first reason why understanding a garment’s measurements is not going to tell you much about what size you should wear. It will rarely (if ever) actually match up to your body. The biggest reason though why we don’t share garment measurements is because of varying fit intentions. What I mean by this is: when we fit garments at an apparel company, we are following a brief to tell us whether that garment should be tight-fitting, relaxed, oversized or anywhere in between. If you are a Medium in a garment that we intend to be oversized and slouchy, then its garment measurements are going to be nowhere close to your body specifications. So the next time you’re shopping for apparel online and you’re wondering how a garment will fit your specific body, look more closely for their body size chart or fit guide that they might provide. Outlining their definition of what “slim” or “relaxed” means on a body is a better way to gauge a garment’s fit intention than seeking out the true measurements of a garment. Trust me, garment measurements are going to get you nowhere unless you’re also a professional in the industry and can decipher how those specifications will translate properly.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite ways to vacation is at All-Inclusive resorts. The very first vacation that my husband and I took together was at a small All-Inclusive hotel, and we loved our experience. It honestly comes down to one main perk: I never have to worry about carrying any money with me on this type of vacation. I don’t have to carry a bag or a wallet as long as I’m on the resort grounds, and it just simplifies every single moment of our vacation time together. For the majority of our All-Inclusive vacations, we’ve headed to Mexico. Staring at that aqua blue water shimmering in the hot sun on a Mexico beach is my definition of relaxation. And while I know that there are so many beautiful islands and beaches around the world for me to still explore, Mexico is an easy airplane ride away from California. So I’m not spending very much time or budget on the travel time itself. Of the places we’ve stayed in Mexico, I’ll rank my top three for you here: #3: Vallarta Palace, Puerto Vallarta This resort is no longer a Palace Resort, and has turned into the Hard Rock Hotel Vallarta since we visited there. So I can’t speak to the newest renovations. But from what I’ve read online, many of the same amazing features of the hotel are still there. This was the location of our wedding and honeymoon back in 2010, and we loved our stay there so much. As a Palace Resort, the hotel was busy with guests, but never felt too loud or raucous. Our time there was restful and most activities throughout the hotel were readily available for us to enjoy. The food at the Vallarta Palace was some of the best we’d ever eaten at that time in our lives, and we still try to replicate their coffee and tequila afternoon drinks at home. I will hold this resort in my heart forever because it was the location where I tied the knot with the love of my life. It was where we held residency prior to our ceremony and where we stayed for an extra week to enjoy our full honeymoon. I still have photos all over my walls that came from this resort, and it will be remembered by us for the rest of our lives. #2: Secrets Resort, Huatulco The Secrets Resort here was such a quiet resort, we felt we had it mostly to ourselves! Huatulco, which is about a half hour drive away from the Oaxaca airport, felt like a bit of a secret itself when we stayed there. Set up with ocean views no matter which room you stayed in, the Conejos Bay was a beautiful beach to relax on. We had our choice of shaded and comfortable lounging spots every morning, as the percentage of guests on the beach every day was low. Most other guests preferred to stay near the multiple pools or enjoyed the sun from their own private balcony. I wish we had known more about Oaxacan food at the time of our stay. (We’ve since become a little bit “foodie” in our travels, but we weren’t back then). We hadn’t anticipated molé sauces and roasted chicken in place of more “familiar” Mexican foods. The meals were all genuinely outstanding, but we were unaccustomed to it. I’d love to go back to the Oaxaca area again to retry those meals with what I know now. The only reason for this resort not being at the top of the list was the service. And our experience was a bit of a fluke… During the week we stayed here, they were shooting scenes for a Telemundo soap opera. The lobby and different areas of the resort would be blocked off to guests during shooting, and the staff were always so busy catering to their schedule. It was difficult to be noticed or served with so much going on around us, so I understand why the service was not five-star. But it did kind of sour our opinion of this specific trip. #1: Le Blanc Resort, Cancun By far, Le Blanc Resort in Cancun was the best All-Inclusive resort we’ve ever stayed at. The rooms were immaculately clean and it was a quiet atmosphere. As an adults only resort, we were surrounded by other couples looking for a break from the daily grind and many were on their honeymoons. We traveled to this resort at a time in our careers when we were both working non-stop. The relaxation and rest that we got while we were here was like nothing I’ve experienced any other time in my life. With large lounging mattresses and chairs throughout the resort, we napped and slept in between meals all week long. And speaking of the meals: With six different restaurants to choose from, we had a different experience for dinner every evening of our week-long trip. From amazing Mexican food to French and Italian that we couldn’t stop talking about, we only had good experiences with their dining options. I have had it on my list to return to Le Blanc for another visit soon. I’ll admit that I’m afraid it won’t be as amazing as I remember it though, and then I’ll have tainted my wonderful memories of this spectacular hotel. Plus, it’s so hard to return to the same place when there are so many other locations to explore!

In early 2016, I traveled to Bangkok with two of my co-workers to visit a local apparel production factory. Thailand had been on a short list of places I was so excited to visit, and this opportunity felt full of promise and luck. In the end, my short visit to the amazing city ended up being my first time experiencing extreme travel fatigue. So it will continue to live on my list of places to visit, so that I can do it properly next time! We arrived in Bangkok after a full week of business travel already behind us. Our first stop had been through Hanoi, where all of our luggage was lost for three days. The stress of not having your own professional attire, toiletries and undergarments was weighty. We had to cancel our first morning of meetings to ask someone to take us to a local shop, where we could purchase socks, bras and pants that weren’t just stretchy travel tights. We wanted to look buttoned up for our client visits, but sizing in Vietnam is very different from sizing in the US. I typically wear a size small or medium in the US, and I ended up fitting into their extra-large undergarments. On top of that, the only professional clothes we could find that fit us were men’s garments. We looked odd, but at least we weren’t still in our long-worn airplane gear. We finally received our bags on the fourth day in Hanoi, just in time for us to check out of our hotel and head to the airport for our next flight to Seoul. Heading toward another two-hour time difference, we were prepared to battle some more fatigue. In Seoul, we luckily all had our bags arrive with us, but because we were only there for one day, it was another kind of stress on our bodies. Finally feeling like we had some respite from the stress of missing our own belongings, we were now in the busiest and most chaotic part of our trip. So we squeezed in meetings, lunches and dinners in a very short amount of time before getting on the next airplane. By the time we arrived in Bangkok, we were all mentally exhausted. Managing our stress while appearing calm, cool and collected in front of our business partners had been a lot to take on. We were all so excited for a day over that weekend to just explore Bangkok, eat some amazing Thai food and be tourists. The morning we spent together, walking through the city, exploring some amazing locations was beyond words. I felt grateful and humbled to have the opportunity to travel to places like Bangkok for work, and we were blown away by the architecture, spirituality and beauty of the area. Unfortunately for me, my body was not able to keep up with the tourism much past lunch-time. My mental exhaustion caught up to my body, and I needed rest. As we were stepping on a crowded water taxi to visit an afternoon tourist spot, a bit of nausea set in, and I ended up having to head back to the hotel for some relaxation. I’m proud to say that I made it there without any mishaps on the boat though! I took a long nap at the hotel and made myself get up for dinner. I was NOT going to miss my only chance at an authentic Thai dinner before we headed to our next destination in China. A little Tom Gai soup actually helped to settle my body down, and every bite of that meal was worth it. I wish so much that the day had gone better than it did, but maybe it was just the Universe’s way of telling me I need to head back there someday with more time and openness to really explore its wonders.

It is a super rare occurrence in the apparel industry to have the opportunity to work on a patented garment feature. Patents are difficult to acquire when it comes to clothes, as almost everything has been done before! Coming up with an entirely unique, new idea that could pass the patenting processes is almost unheard of within the industry. So in 2015, when I had the chance to work on Pearl Izumi’s patented cycling jersey speed sleeve, it was an amazing opportunity. Even better than that, I was at the company during a time when the inventor of the patented sleeve was still there. Collaborating with him to come up with iterations on his original design was extremely exciting. Our goal was to take this professional-level athletic garment outside of the pro peloton and offer it to the masses. We wanted this technology to be available to anybody who wanted to try it, so we created an extension of the existing jersey product line to feature this technology. Introducing new fabric options into the new levels of jerseys was difficult. Getting this unique sleeve shape to fit just right around a shoulder was tricky in the first place. And they had originally used an extremely stretchy fabric that could be pulled very tightly around the wearer’s body. This extreme tension in the fabric is what helped to create the aerodynamic properties of the sleeve, so it was important that we mimic it as much as possible in our new developments. One fabric in particular gave us headaches for weeks. It had a great amount of stretch, but the recovery of the fabric was not very good. This means that we could pull the fabric over the shoulder for days, but it wouldn’t bounce back enough to create the tension we needed. It would just keep stretching and pulling, creating a wrinkled mess across our model’s shoulders. We eventually figured out how to make it work though, and the jersey was quite successful with its sell-through. Customers were excited to have Pearl Izumi’s pinnacle racing technology available to them, at a price point that wouldn’t break the bank.

Today was an exciting step forward for my apparel development process! I've made some choices on fabrics (coming from Italy in the next few weeks) and I've reached out to my potential factory for a new process quote. I'm crossing my fingers that all the numbers align just right, and I'm able to get started on sample creation with them soon. Here are the three items that I've decided to start with: Baselayer Protective Legging Baselayer Protective Fitted Tee Stretch Business Skinny Pant I know the names need more work! For now, I'm just using these as place-holders. ha! More to come soon on what "Protective" means and how it could soon become essential for those of us who travel by airplane on a regular basis. I'm digging into some serious research documents about this protection now, and how it might help to prevent or at least alleviate jet-lag issues. A trip to LA to visit the factory and meet with the team there might be next on my list, which I could not be more excited for! Timing is everything at this stage of the game though, so I'm continuing to keep my "planning" hat on while we work through budget and process first. I want to jump right in, but need to make sure I'm being smart about the up-front fees. Here's hoping everything goes great over the next couple of months and I can keep sending out positive updates!!

Depending on your level of experience in the apparel industry, searching for fabrics will need to be different from person to person or from company to company. Each of the below processes is a great way to work through this stage of the development cycle though. None is better or worse than the other. It’s just a matter of starting where you're comfortable. Start-Up Level Processes: Fabric stores are available around the world for every-day consumers to shop. Jo-Ann’s Fabric Store is one that I used to frequent when I was a teenager making my own clothes at home. As I started to search for more diverse options in college, I did a lot of my shopping at Mood Fabrics Online, the largest online fabric store out there. It is extremely difficult to purchase fabrics without touching and seeing them in person though. So if you are going to shop online, see if the store will do “swatching” for you. In the swatching process, a store representative will take your fabric requests and clip small squares of their available options off of the larger fabric bolts. They’ll then tape or staple those swatches to cards, detailing the fabric name, quality, code and cost. Once you receive that swatch card, you can then at least feel the thickness, see the true color and quality of the materials before you purchase. From there, whether you’ve gone to a physical store or worked through the swatching process with an online seller, you just purchase the amount of yardage you need and you can start sewing. Once you have prototypes that you like in fabrics that you’re happy with, you can take them to a manufacturer or sourcing professional to help you find larger quantities of that fabric (or as close as possible) for production runs. Intermediate Level Processes: If you are somewhere in between these other two levels, attending fabric trade shows can be a great intermediate process to source fabrics. Meeting employees of a variety of mills and suppliers in one location, while having the chance to look at the fabric headers they brought with them to the show is a great way to maximize your time for fabric sourcing. If you’ve made samples by buying fabrics at a local store, you can bring them with you to search for similar fabrics. And from there, you’ll have started to build those professional relationships that will get you to the next level. Professional Level Processes: If you’ve been in the apparel industry for years or already have a professional sourcing partner on your team, it can be much easier to reach out to your preferred mills directly to source your fabrics. You’ll want to start with what we call “headers” of fabric at this level. Headers are usually an eight-inch square of fabric that comes attached to a professional card, which outlines the fabric name, quality, code and cost. Professional fabric headers will also include weight of the fabric (either in ounces or grams per square meter) and width of the fabric roll. Knowing these finer details will help with the planning of your production processes. For example, more pieces of a garment can be cut from a 60” wide roll of fabric than a 45” roll of fabric. Once you’ve received headers, many of the bigger industry mills will allow you to ask for one or two yards of your favorite options. This will allow you to do some early or in-house prototyping to determine if the materials will yield the fit, look and feel that you wanted. From here, you’ll need to invest in ordering official sample yardage rolls to sample at your factory before going into production runs of both material and apparel. The number of different kinds of fabrics available to find are practically endless. Some companies even thrive on developing all of their own fabrics from scratch when they can’t find exactly what they need! The most important thing to have at this stage of your apparel development process is your vision. Envisioning what fabric is ideal for your line will help you to recognize it as soon as you see it on the shelf. And if you find something out of your price range, don’t be frustrated. Write down the content of the fabric you love, its weight and any other details you can find. Take those specifications to other mills and suppliers to see if they can offer you something similar at a better price. Don’t give up! Your ideal fabric is out there.

It was inevitable that Boulder would soon start calling to my heart again. I’m not even sure that I can put into words how much I love this area of Colorado, as every time I’m there I just feel like I’m “home.” The people from Boulder to Fort Collins to Denver and Colorado Springs all just seem to feel like kindred spirits. When we lived there for four years, my husband and I would just look at each other every week and say, “Can you believe that we LIVE here?” The mountains are calming and humbling, and while the weather can be freezing and snowy, the sunshine somehow still makes you feel warm.   While I could probably write several different series of posts about Colorado (and maybe I will!), I’ll focus here on my top five favorite places in Boulder, proper. I’m hoping to hop on a plane sometime soon to actually head back and see these places again in person!   The Boulder Farmers Market Even though we lived southeast of Boulder and it took me twenty minutes longer to get there than the grocery store, I attended the Boulder Farmers Market nearly every Saturday morning that we lived there. Ranked as one of the best Farmers Markets in the country, it spans a full block of both Canyon Blvd. and 13th Street. Produce, baked goods, coffee, honey, hot sauce and pasta were just a few of the many booths that showed up each week. And every other weekend, they also held a small Craft Fair on the opposite side of 13th Street where you could shop for local artists’ treasures. I’m not sure why, but no other city’s Farmers Market has ever drawn me in like this one did. The people are friendly, their pets are well behaved and the prices are fair. Definitely check out this spot, even if it’s just for your morning coffee and a croissant on Saturday morning for breakfast. Pearl Street Mall Along Pearl Street, you’ll find an eclectic mix of stores, restaurants and artwork. From bigger stores like Patagonia to kitschy souvenir shops, there is much to be found along this outdoor mall’s path. I usually start at University Bicycles at the corner of 9th Street and make my way down to Snooze A.M. for Brunch on a weekend morning. (Best Brunch on the planet, IMHO).   Backcountry Pizza & Tap House We first headed to this spot to check out their rightfully proclaimed “Colorado’s widest selection of draft microbrews.” But now we go back for the pizza. We dream of this pizza when we’re searching new cities for their best pies. Nothing else ever seems to come close. Whenever we head back to Colorado, this is number one on our list of places to eat, and we make sure to include it in our plans.   Hazel’s Beverage World Forget BevMo or Total Wine or any other big box liquor store. When we wanted to browse the best selection of craft beers, wines and liquors, we went to Hazel’s. I think I still have points on a member card from them, that I should remember to redeem next time I’m in town! This might not always be an easy stop to make if you’re just visiting for a short period of time, but whenever we have a refrigerator available to us in our hotel or rental house, we head here to buy a few of our favorites that we can’t find anywhere else.   The Flatirons Hiking trails cover the lower Flatirons mountains, and they are all worth exploring. Some trails are perfect for beginners, while others should only be traversed by experts. I’ve even seen people climbing the face of the Flatirons before! Bring your hiking shoes and water bottle and go explore the amazing outdoors that make Boulder so beautiful. You won’t regret the adventure and the views.

Once you have a target cost from your product manager, there are several ways to reverse engineer your design into their pricing structure. Considering the cost for every garment detail one-by-one is one of the best practices I’ve ever seen executed in the apparel industry. The designers who spend time with their developers and production managers to do these exercises in initial design stages are by far the best at their craft. Let’s look at a pretend example brief, where your product manager is asking for a casual jacket design. They want to sell the garment for $150.00 to several wholesale accounts and directly to consumers. Their target total garment cost is set at $30.00, and they’ve asked that $10.00 of that cost be considered for trims and construction details. (The remaining $20.00 will go toward fabric and factory costs). As a designer working to create a unique piece, $10.00 for trims and details can be difficult to stick to. It will require some teamwork to make sure that goal is met. First, you’ll want to meet with your production manager, who can give you a list of trim costs that have been sourced with nominated suppliers. Once that list is in hand, it will start to become clear which trims you can afford. From there, you can decide if buttons should be used instead of snaps or if certain zipper qualities should be used over others. So let’s now say that the designer has chosen to go with eight $0.50 buttons for the jacket’s center front closure. The quality and appearance of the buttons is very nice and it only cost $4.00 out of the $10.00 budget for this detail’s trims. This leaves $6.00 to maybe now add zippered hand pockets or a drawcord detail. It could also leave an extra $6.00 in the budget for a higher quality fabric, which might be the bigger priority for the garment. From there, meeting with the development team members can help to further hone in on a target cost. If perhaps the designer proposed to add a hem drawcord detail to the jacket, the developers can now make suggestions on cost-effective ways to insert the drawcord, finish the drawcord ends and cinch the drawcord tight. Oftentimes, the development team is full of experts in these areas of garment construction, and they can help to make sure that each dollar spent on sewing the garment is maximized for quality. If the team comes together to scrutinize fabric cost, trim cost and construction cost before a request is ever sent out to the factory, they have a much better chance of receiving a successful first prototype. Being on target in these early stages will allow timelines and processes to run smoothly, and will ensure that the business goals of the department are met with ease.

During my time at Miller, International in Denver, our focus was set completely on rodeo-wear. With their core brand CINCH being a household name throughout the rodeo circuit, it was important for our apparel to be durable and comfortable for the variety of sports involved in rodeos. It was also essential for the quality of our garments to live up to the stellar brand name the company had created for years within the industry. From barrel racing to bull riding and everything in between, we made sure that our athletes were happy with the garments provided to them for their sport. One of the most crucial parts of a cowboy or girl’s outfit is their denim. It supports them while they’re riding a hard leather saddle, and must be accommodating enough for ample movement, protection from dirt and abrasion from inevitable falls. At a time when the denim market was turning to lightweight fabrics and high stretch for extra comfort, we were consistently searching for the heaviest options available. The last thing we wanted was for an athlete to wear holes in their pants while they were training, practicing or competing in our garments. The trickiest task when dealing with heavy, low stretch denim is the fit. When your denim has a large percentage of spandex, the extra stretch throughout the legs and hips will allow for some fit forgiveness. But when you’re using tightly woven cotton, it really must have proper pattern shapes and sewing techniques implemented to make it feel comfortable on the body. I was coming into this company at a time in my career when I’d just helped complete a previous employer’s denim re-launch, so I was excited to get my hands on this core product line. And after about a year of proving my abilities with woven shirts and trendy western tops and dresses, I was given the opportunity to expand my reach. Learning from experts who had been developing and fitting rodeo denim for decades was such an awesome educational experience. I had the opportunity to travel several times to our factories in Mexico where they manufacture the garments. I even got fairly decent with my Spanish speaking abilities. My favorite visit was when they allowed me and a colleague to distress and wash out a pair of raw denim ourselves. Goggles and face masks on, we saw how difficult it was to control the machinery. Our appreciation for their exactness and craftsmanship went up exponentially that day! Sadly, after I left Miller, I have not had the opportunity to work on denim products since. I miss the artform that is required to properly manipulate denim goods, and I’d love the chance to work with a denim company again. Maybe someday that will happen, and I can put my skills and knowledge back to good use.