nyc study tour: day II

X Esquel Group

X WGSN!!!!!!

X Sem Sem

X Julia Knits

X Queens

Today, we began our first round of industry visits. Esquel Group was our first visit and it really blew me away. They are completely sustainability-focused and were telling us about all they ways that they conserve water and energy and the new ways they are being innovative about like making their new factory completely sustainable. Our second visit was to WGSN, where I had a major fan girl moment. Previously Worth Global Style Network (named after founders), now World Global Style Network, is a trend forecasting company that we use at K-State for many of our projects such as trend and mood boards. They were super laid back and the office was so fun and personable. Our third appointment was with Sem Sem, a small production design company. It was interesting to actually see what I have seen in pictures before of actual people constructing actual garments. This particular company produces clothing for a number of brands, such as The Row, by the Olsen twins. The CEO of the company has Egyptian heritage, so we were told that we will often see a Middle Eastern influence in many of the clothes, which was also pretty cool. We had lunch, LeighAna and I went to The Hummus & Pita Co. It was quite delish. Falafel is my weakness. After lunch, we traveled to Queens, took us about an hour on the Subway, to Julia Knits. Julia Knits is one of the last remaining domestic sweater manufacturers left. They have these high-tech machines that run 24/7 making sweaters. They do produce for fast fashion, which was kind of disappointing, (imagine how much energy all those machines are taking up by running 24/7 producing orders around 15,000 pieces) but it was interesting to see what it all looked like. We then accidentally slept for a longer time than we originally planned, but it's okay because we have so much planned for the next four days.