last reflection

I completed my internship this week and it was definitely a sad day.  I learned so much from everyone I worked with.  I will be going back to school with a better understanding of so many industrial things.  I learned to accurately measure garments flat.  This will help me in school if something is not coming out right, I know I can measure it to compare the numbers of the flat garment to my patterns and check what happened.  It will also help me in pattern making and draping because I have a general knowledge of the average numbers used (at least for MK) for different measurements.  For instance I will always remember now that the apex is typically 10.5" from the HPS or that the waist is 15" from HPS.  Same with high hip and low hip measurements.  I definitely feel this will be helpful in creating designs on the form in draping.
I also have a better understanding on what to do to help fix fit problems.  While at work I only watched the tech designers fix fit issues, they were very good at explaining what they were doing and why.  Hopefully I can remember all their little tricks and tips about getting a good fit.  I have also noticed that since working there when I go shopping and try something on, I am able to figure out why something may not fit me well.  I can tell what is wrong with the garment and think about how I would fix it.
I'm so thankful that I did this internship because it was a great environment to work in as well.  Everyone I worked with was wonderful.  They really have a tight knit group there in tech, but the invited us interns in with open arms.  We have jokes and laughs amid the seriousness of our work.  They even threw us a pizza lunch with desserts this week before I left to thank us for helping them.  They wrote us thank you cards and let us take 3 jackets for free.  I also received a Starbucks gift card from one of my bosses.  How many interns can say they really formed bonds with their supervisors?  I know that none of my other friends were thrown a party for being an intern.  I am so glad this was such a hands on experience.  I never had to run and get anyone coffee or pick up anyone's dry cleaning.  Michael Kors has a great internship program going for them and I would suggest it to anyone.
The major thing I learned from doing this internship is that I don't want to be a tech designer.  There's not enough creativity involved.  It's a lot of number crunching- and I don't like fractions nearly enough to do that!  I am glad I did it because I learned a lot of valuable information, insight, and skills that will help me in the long run.  But hey, that's what internships are all about: finding out what you do and don't want to do with your career.  We have to get experience somewhere and I am so happy that I started here.
I wish to thank all my supervisors and fellow interns for a great summer!  While I won't miss that bus commute, I will miss seeing everyone every day.  I guess I'll have to visit!

tech packs

One thing I was always working with at this internship was tech packs.  The tech packs are packets with all the information about a particular garment that get sent to the factories and different departments within the company.  Michael Kors uses a program called Enovia, which I think I have mentioned before.  It is a web PLM, which stands for product lifecycle management.  This program is capable of storing and organizing every garment ever made by MK.
The tech packs are comprised of eleven different sections, some used and some not by our department.  Three of our factories (MMK, Coddy, and PBMS) can see the tech packs directly through their own version of Enovia.  Kyra, one of our other sample rooms, receives the tech packs through an emailed PDF.  (As a side note, I got to go on a drop off run to Kyra.  Kyra is located on 37th Street so we don't ship the packages there; they get hand delivered.  I went there and went up the high rise and the showroom is super tiny.  There's just stuff everywhere!  I didn't see any sewing machines or anything though, so maybe we drop off the samples and they send them out somewhere else?  Who knows!)
I was able to take pictures of an old tech pack to help explain what the different things are.

Page 1: Product Overview

The product overview is like the cover page for the tech pack.  It includes the basic information like the sketch, the style number, the factory, the FAD (fit approval date), fabric, colors, all that good stuff.

Page 2: Sketch Overview

This page will have the detailed flat sketch of the garment.  MK does all their flats by hand rather than Illustrator, which I thought was interesting.  This page may also include design details or inspirations and the designer's comments.

Page 3: Artwork

This particular tech pack doesn't have anything on the artwork page, but it's pretty much the same concept as the sketch overview.  It may have an example of the print on a fabric or something, but it is not used in tech.

Page 4: Bill of Materials

This page will list out every material used for the garment, from the fabrics, to trims, buttons, threads, zippers, chains, ect.  It was also list the prices of all of these.  We don't use this page in tech.

Page 5: Color Details

All the colors of the garment fabric and trims are listed on this page.  We don't use this page.

Page 6: Current Measurements

This page is very important in the tech department.  This is where we keep track of all the current measurements of a particular garment.  Every time a sample comes in we have to measure it following the POMs (point of measure) listed on the current measurement charts.  The measurements listed are the measurements we requested for that piece, but the samples do not usually come in at the exact number we requested.  The current measurement chart can take up multiple pages.  The longest chart I saw was 4 pages of POMs.

Page 7: Measurement History

We don't use this page either, but it basically just keeps track of the changes we make to different measurements on the charts.  This can also be several pages long.

Pages 8-10: Sample Requests

The sample request pages are also very important in tech.  It consists of multiple pages that keep track of recorded measurements for the sample, photos from the fitting, comments to the factory about the fit and requests for the next sample.  Sample requests can become lengthy especially when there are a lot of problems with a current sample.

Page 11: Graded Measurements

This is another chart that tracks all the measurements for each size of that garment that will be produced.  We fit samples as size 8/M, plus, and occasionally petite.  But all the other sizes in between are figured out based on a grading scale.  To grade things means to size up or down.  This is also an important sheet for the tech department. 

Page 12:  Graded Increments

We don't use this page either.  All it does is state the numerical differences between sizes.

Page 13: How to Measure

This page is just a more in depth description of the POMs and how to physically go about measuring the garment.  We don't use it because we all know what the POMs mean.

Each team (tops, dresses, knits, pants, jackets, ect.) keeps record of all their own tech packs.  I was also in charge of filing the tech packs in binders for each team I worked for.  The tech packs are organized by season in a binder and filed by style number.  Needless to say, the binders are huge!