Intern Insight - Week 5
I’ve officially made it through a month of my internship with Mamie Ruth! As the weeks have went by I’ve learned so much, become closer with Emily and Felicia, and gained a lot of experience. I still have three months left but time is flying by and I don’t want my internship to end that fast!
This week wasn’t that exciting most of the week. One thing that I have learned in this internship though is that being in fashion, or any job, you have to do things that aren’t necessarily fun but needed. We have had a lot of deliveries so little tasks needed to be done before the orders could be shipped. I sewed more size tags, wash tags, and Mamie Ruth tags on all the clothes that did not have any on them. I also organized the racks of clothes and the jewelry rack so the show room looked great and ready for a small trunk show after work. On Thursday, Emily and I played around with a traditional Mexican dress and transformed it into a cropped shirt. It has always been my favorite part of designing in seeing the transformation of an idea in your head to the finished product. It took no time and little effort also. All of these little tasks were made up from what happened on Tuesday though!
Tuesday was our trip to the manufacturer that was going to produce the summer collection! I was really excited to go because I had never been to one before. I was more excited in seeing the transition from a smaller business, with a seamstress and almost everything hand done, into a bigger business with a manufacturer and progressing. When we walked into the manufacturer it was so big. It was really cool seeing the patterns and the pattern making tools around. After a brief meeting we went on a tour of the manufacturing factory. The embroidery part was so pretty because there were spools of thread in every color you could imagine. It was like sewing rainbow! After that we went upstairs where people actually sewed everything. The sewers were sewing faster than I’ve ever seen before. If I did that I would have lost a finger or two. They had every sewing machine you could imagine too. After that we went to the screen printing department. This was my favorite part because I had never seen screen printing done before. We watched a girl make a sweatshirt the old fashion way. She used paint and a squeegee method to put the graphic on the sweatshirt. It was so shocking that it came out so clean and fresh like it was done digitally. I had such a good experience going to the manufacturer and I loved that Mamie Ruth was still “Made in the USA. Duh!”
This past month has been such a great experience. Coming into the internship Emily and Felicia told me that I was going to learn so much about everything and I think that I came at the perfect time also. I will get to see something that most interns do not get to see which is a business transforming and progressing. I’m very excited for Mamie Ruth and the success that is right around the corner!