Please give a brief background on yourself and your career.
I have had an interest in socially responsible fashion since I was 16 and went to Guatemala to study Spanish and stay with a host family. My pre-teen host sister worked at a garment factory outside of Antigua, and that bothered me quite a lot. At Wellesley I studied economics and English, and part of my interest in economics came from this need to understand how the global economy worked, and how a girl like my host sister could be stuck the way she was. I thought if I could understand economics I would have an idea of how to do things better. After graduating early from Wellesley, I went to Mexico for three months and worked for an orphanage, and then I worked for a year as an economic consultant in Washington, D.C. I didn’t find that very satisfying, so I decided to study fashion design in New York City at the Fashion Institute of Technology. This was quite a shift, because before that I’d been considering an economics PhD. But I had the idea that with a degree in Fashion Design I would have another tool in my toolbox to make the fashion industry a better place.
After fashion school I went to work for Eileen Fisher in technical design. Then during the economic downturn of 2008/09, the company offered employees the opportunity to take unpaid leave. Most people took about 2 weeks. But I put together a proposal to take 4 months off so I could go to Ethiopia and work with textile artisans there. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that I had found something I was passionate about. This group of artisans represented to me the possibility for economic development through small business creation in developing countries. It seemed to make sense to use the skill sets that artisans already have to help them enter the global economy and alleviate their own poverty.
Shortly after I returned to the U.S. from Ethiopia, my fiancé was sent to the Netherlands for his job, and since I was itching to travel again, I found a short term gig working with a textile artist there and quit my job at Eileen Fisher. Needless to say there are few technical design jobs for English speakers in the Netherlands. So I returned to the U.S. and worked as a designer for Ann Taylor. That job was a ton of fun, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d experienced in Ethiopia.
I decided to get a graduate degree in International Development at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington D.C. I had a great experience there and had a lot of opportunities for researching the textile and apparel industry impacts on developing countries. I traveled to India with a friend to conduct a research project about the textile and apparel supply chain. I took a class on Social Enterprise that helped me formulate a business plan for a fashion social enterprise. I also completed a capstone project researching socially and environmentally responsible fashion designers and how they implement and measure positive impacts. And I created a business plan that I entered in a number of business plan competitions where it did quite well. After graduating, I moved to New Jersey with my husband and launched my own online brand, Puzzle Apparel. Puzzle Apparel allows shoppers to customize our styles using handmade fabric by American artists. We make everything in the U.S. in order to support American manufacturing and arts.
How has your career changed since you originally envisioned it at Wellesley? What other careers did you consider as a student?
I didn’t have any clear expectation about what careers were like when I started at Wellesley, because I had very little information to work with (and realistically we all have a limited perspective based on our backgrounds). My mother is a dancer who became a dance professor and then a dance teacher, turned math teacher, turned a bookkeeper and then back to dance teacher again. My father is a fine artist who got into real estate development. Both had unusual careers, and my father was always self employed and very entrepreneurial. I spent my middle and high school years in rural Maine, where the other parents I knew had similarly creative careers – or were local teachers, doctors, lawyers, bankers, or lobster fishermen.
I decided to study economics at Wellesley largely because I felt I had no idea how business and the economy worked. And I really loved studying economics – I felt fascinated by the things economists were able to figure out by analyzing data. But I was also drawn to fashion (I joined A La Mode and sewed a line of dresses for the runway show), fine art (almost became a fine art major), and creative writing (my minor in English is largely due to many creative writing classes). However, because I wanted more of a linear “career” than either of my parents had had, I didn’t consider the arts viable career options–little did I know that there are actually steady jobs in those fields – we don’t all have to be starving artists! At the time I thought of economics as my only really viable career path. I became wary of Wall Street, having heard complaints from seniors who’d had grueling junior internships in banking and said they felt like “sell outs,” so I didn’t go that route. Instead I took the advice of my economics professors and applied for jobs in economic consulting, a very specialized field of consulting focused on analyzing economic data to prove things for clients (usually clients getting sued).
I can’t stress enough how important it is to ask people to tell you about their career paths: Wellesley alums, people in your community, the Boston area, people living in the town of Wellesley, etc. As a Wellesley student, it’s important to get a feeling as early as you can for the wide variety of options you have. You really DO have endless options at that point in your career, and you can shape your life direction by your choice of major, your choice of internships, and in the end, what you’re interested in. There are an awful lot of non-obvious job choices and directions to take and you can’t guess at them.
Today my career is wholly different from economic consulting. After a short while in economic consulting I found I really disliked it. I loved geeking out learning SQL and using Stata, but I didn’t find the overall business stimulating. But after a year working in Washington, D.C. and meeting other young professionals, I felt I had a better handle on how careers worked and what might make sense for mine.
How has Wellesley contributed to your career?
Wellesley gave me the foundation for learning and analyzing information and ideas. Also what I learned from the Wellesley economics department is eternally useful. Economics relates to almost everything important that you read in the news, and today helps me consider business decisions in a logical way. Wellesley also has great ties to amazing graduate schools – do not ever underestimate what that can mean. I felt very humble about the graduate schools I thought I could get into, but discovered after applying that the Wellesley name carries weight. I got in everywhere I applied, even Harvard. Plus our alumnae network is always full of wonderful women to meet. I’ve moved a lot and often have found that useful.
What is a typical work day or work week like for you?
At the moment there is no typical work day or work week for me. I’m building a business, so that means tackling something new all the time. The constants for me are learning new things, testing new things, stepping out of my comfort zone, and making uncertain/risk-filled decisions. On any given day you might find me pattern making, sketching, editing photographs, working on my website, accounting, making financial projections, researching environmentally friendly fabrics, searching for new production facilities, talking to fabric artisans, shipping orders, etc.
What piece of advice would you offer students looking to get into your area of interest and expertise?
On the creative side of the fashion industry – fashion design, technical design (patternmaking), graphics, textile design – it’s important to have classes and/or experience that directly relate to your field of interest. As a designer, you’ll need to know how to sketch flat technical illustrations of clothing and put together technical specification packages to tell the factory how to make samples from your illustration. As a technical designer, you have to be able to make and edit patterns. And for all these types of jobs you’ll need to know how to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and possibly other graphics or product management software. Since Wellesley doesn’t offer those types of classes, I would recommend doing a summer internship or job in New York City in a related field, and taking a night class or two at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Those classes are quite affordable, and as a Wellesley student you’ll find you’re ahead of the curve on responsibility, study habits, and the like so you should have no trouble fitting them in on top of an internship or job.
On the business side of the fashion industry – fashion merchandising/buying, financial planning & budgeting, marketing, ecommerce, etc – it’s less important to have directly related classes (retail math at the Fashion Institute is a math class I got 100% in without studying) and more important to have related experiences. However, a 100% in retail math wouldn’t hurt you when trying to get one of those jobs. Economics classes and business internships can also help you get a fashion business internship or job.
While at Wellesley you can get into fashion blogging, the fashion club, host events on campus, write papers about the industry or get a retail job. As a smart, responsible Wellesley student, a retail job at the Gap or Anthropology or somewhere similar might sound awful. But while still in college, you can work your way up to assistant store manager or store manager, which is often a direct track for getting into the merchandising or buying role at a store’s headquarters. Just make sure before you start in retail that the store has a headquarters you’d want to work for.
If you’re interested in entrepreneurship in any field, my advice is to just start something! It doesn’t have to be your final business, the biggest idea, or your best idea, but there is really no better way to learn what it is like to start a business than to do it. Find partners if you can – it’s a lonely road otherwise! And lastly, before you start, talk to your potential customers to figure out how they operate in your market – what they currently buy and why and how – and use that to formulate your business plan to better meet their needs.
What do you wish you had known as a student?
First of all, I wish I had known not to be intimidated by anything. At Wellesley I was intimidated by computer science classes because I thought they would be too hard for me. That was crazy. I should have absolutely taken classes in computer science, if for no other reason than to try it out. I only found out after Wellesley that I am good with coding languages, but I have never had the time to fully invest in learning all I can in that field. So, if there is something you have an inkling of interest in, find out more! Maybe go to a workshop in Boston before taking a whole class, but regardless, do something to find out if it is worthwhile for you to pursue! Don’t let any kind of fear that you might not be able to handle something stop you from trying it. You won’t know until you try. Your fear of failure is only imagination! And failure is not bad – it means you’re actually testing your boundaries. If you’re successful at everything it means you’re failing at getting out of your comfort zone.
Second, I wish I had known not to take specific advice from other people about my life decisions. By specific I mean “take this job, not that job” type of advice. That means, I shouldn’t have let a senior talk me out of an internship on Wall Street just because she didn’t like it. After moving to New York City for fashion, believe me, I met a lot of people on Wall Street, found out what they did, and realized it wasn’t as horrible as the seniors made it sound. I probably should have tested it out with an internship to learn more. Then my decision not to go into banking would have been my informed choice, rather than a choice I made based on someone else’s idea. And while I always appreciated my professors’ advice (and I would always say get to know your professors if you can because they have done cool stuff and know cool people!) – obviously their idea that I would be a good fit for economic consulting was wrong. If you find someone’s opinion weighing heavily, it probably means you need more information, more facts, to get to a good decision for YOU. Go do some research. Talk to more people to get more data points. Read books. Read articles and blogs. Explore company websites.
If you could come back and take one class at Wellesley what would it be?
I would come back for the Albright Institute during winter session!