Belk is a southern department store chain based out of Charlotte, NC. Belk began as a family owned company over 100 years ago. The company has grown and is now a popular retailer in the south, selling nation wide brands along with its private labels. As an Assistant Technical Designer at Belk, I had the unique experience of being able to work with different teams. Starting out of school I was assigned to the Womens brand "Kim Rogers", while on this team I managed the denim development across Womens, Missy and Petite sizes.
I then began working on Men's product. Eventually taking over responsibility of Red Camel - Belk's young men's line. This gave me the unique opportunity to heavily influence design of the styles while still managing the technical development. While on the Men's team I also helped to launch MADE - Cam Newton's private label with Belk; even getting to do fittings with Cam himself. Working closely on both the design and technical sides, this helped me to further my knowledge of tailored clothes and suiting.
During my junior year of college , I chose to take an internship in NYC. I wanted an internship where I would get real world situations, connections and work. For that reason I took on the challenge of being an intern at Ariela-Alpha International (Now Ariela & Associates International). AAI is one of the leading wholesalers and licensee for women's lingerie. They create, sale and manage product for Kohls, Fruit of the Loom, Walmart, and Macy's. During my summer at AAI was the technical design departments intern. I assisted with factory communication, pattern creation, sample room request, attended fittings and helped created a project for industry bra sizing. Most people do not realize it, but a bra is a highly complex garment. I learned valuable lessons about molded cups, underwires, fittings, and fasteners.
While working in the technical design department I made some tweaks to the excel template they were using as a BOM. Utilizing Macros I was able to increased efficiency and minimized data entry. After the summer was over I was asked to say on as a contractor to continue this project and ultimately produced a new template for the team.
INTERNSHIP
