Fashion prepared me for product
2026, May 08
One collection stands out.
For our Spring collection, we chose a new Turkish denim wash house. Upon receiving our first protos, we were shocked. The quality was not to our standard. The washes lacked depth, the fading was too bright and aggressive, and the hand feel was off.
We had a decision to make. We could move forward and hope the wash house improved, or we could switch vendors and deal with the operational headache of reallocating an entire capsule mid-season.
I suggested we choose the competing Turkish wash house. Their samples looked elevated, had depth, nice contrast, and a great hand feel. The creative director agreed, and we pivoted mid-season to reallocate an entire capsule.
We were 1.5 weeks out from proto review. Sales and merch were sitting in to see the collection.
Design, pattern makers, product development, tech design, and the wash team had to work in tandem, fast. Patterns and specs were adjusted. Technical sketches and tech-packs were updated in our PLM (product lifecycle management) software. All styles were reallocated to a new wash house.
That was just 12 out of 120 styles in the denim collection alone.
We hit the deadline.
Proto review went well.
That was just another Tuesday.
I’ve navigated failed vendors, hard deadlines, and cross functional pivots across hundreds of styles and multiple seasons, simultaneously.
The risk wasn’t changing vendors. The bigger risk was shipping something we didn’t believe in.
The medium changed. The job didn’t.
Who’s the girl we are designing for?
