An amazing sewing industry engineer, Jack Sullivan, told us that he always judges a sewing resource by the way they determine if they can accomplish all of the work required for a contract by the due date.  Jack said that a great contractor will load his factory by minutes (SAMs – Standard Allowed Minutes) or hours (SAH – Standard Allowed Hours) not by number of pieces to be sewn.

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This technique helps to assure that the contractor can meet all deadlines.  This technique also shows that the contractor understands that each piece or garment requires a number of minutes to produce – and those minutes need to be available for the contractor to take your work.

We found a fun Duration Calculator on Google and although it is only counting by days (24 hours per day), we thought it would be a great way to start a new semester.

Duration calculation results

From and including: Tuesday, January 17, 2012
To and including: Monday, May 7, 2012

It is 112 days from the start date to the end date, end date included

Or 3 months, 21 days including the end date

Alternative time units

112 days can be converted to one of these units:

• 9,676,800 seconds
• 161,280 minutes
• 2688 hours
• 16 weeks

David Hoey did this great window for Fashion Week 2011.

Bergdorf Goodman window

A world of words

Yesterday, 12/8/11, the students of fashion collection design did an amazing job with their collection presentations.

Thanks for all of your hard work.

We will be posting links to all the new blogs created this semester.  But for the moment, let us start with Lady Mond.

 The blog links will be posted in the LinksList under the category Blogs of EPCC Fashion Students.  Let us know what you think.  Oh, and please be aware of the fact that the majority of our students speak English as a second language – Spanish is the first language of most of our students.  Others have Korean as a first language.  For example, we have just today said a sad farewell to our beloved J… who is headed off to Paris (and we dream that one day she will come back to us again.)  Her blog JY Design Workshop is great, too.

Or check out True Up

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“Although you don’t necessarily need accurate allocations for purposes of preparing your company’s financial statements, the odds are that at some point down the road those inaccurate allocations may result in poor pricing decisions, and that’s something you can’t afford to do in an increasingly competitive global market.” this quote is from the fabulous website, Accounting Coach on a page Manufacturing overhead.  There you can learn much.  For example, “For a product to be profitable, its selling price must be greater than the sum of the product cost (direct material, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead) plus the nonmanufacturing costs and expenses.”

So do the math!  And that requires knowing the selling price.  Enjoy.

Did you surf the competition?  How?  You find the store where you “hang” and research everything from price to fiber   content to country of origin.

 Harrod’s is great for that purpose, depending on your price point.  However, do remember that you can always scale anything and everything.  If the Harrod’s price, listed in the British pound, for a MOSCHINO CHEAP & CHIC Tuxedo Blouse is £365.00 – you can divide the £365.00 by a ratio or multiply by a percent and determine the price of a blouse that would sell, for example, at half or one-fourth of the price, or 123% of the price of the Moschino.

You determine that ratio or per cent based on your target market.  When you have researched your true target pricing, you are in a position to determine your costs and overhead.

So shop a store of your choice today.

Related articles

• Chanel Takes Over Harrods in London (shoppingblog.com)
• A First Look At Pierre By Balmain, Tom Ford Hits Harrods, Raquel In Brazil, And More… (style.com)
• Designer Spotlight: Erdem (fabsugar.com)
• Become Coco in Wonderland with the Chanel installation at Harrods! (graziadaily.co.uk)

Fashion And Its Votaries V1 (1848) by Mrs. Maberly

The Sketch Book Of Fashion V1: The Second Marriage, My Place In The Country, The Pavilion (1833) by Catherine Grace Frances Gore

The Temple Of Fashion: A Poem, In Five Parts (1781) by Samuel Johnson

The Ladies’ Cabinet Of Fashion,

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Music, And Romance V8 (1840) by Margaret De Courcy and Beatrice De Courcy

These next books have a “look inside” feature.  You can read several pages of these books.

The Bath Road: History, Fashion, And Frivolity On An Old Highway (1899) by Charles George Harper

Anne Seymour Damer: A Woman Of Art And Fashion, 1748-1828 (1908) by Percy Noble

A History Of English Dress Or Fashions Past And Present by Francis Edwards was one of our favorites.