Wear the Rainbow

While working at Nordstrom, I've been savvy to the many methods that retailers use to drive business. For example, Sales Associates are given several means by which they can establish personal relationships with customers, such as, business cards, a computer application called "personal book" that recalls transactions and customer information, and hand-written "thank you" cards, to name a few. Another way that the company drives sales and at the same time rewards employees is to have contests. During one contest, I sold the highest number of coats so I won a free coat, and I won a pair of jeans another time. The company also holds events, sales, and promotions to drive business. Being the Accessories Striker, last month I was in charge of coming up with a scarf promotion. I decided it would be a unique idea that for every scarf purchase, the customer could choose an iron-on decal and we would apply it at no charge. The promotion was a success and I like the way my scarf turned out, as well.

This month, the department as a whole was to come up with a creative camisole promotion. Since we have lots of colors of camis, we decided the theme should be "Wear the Rainbow" and we would give away a bag of skittles with each cami purchase. It wasn't the most successful promotion, it turned out to be on the day of the freak snow storm and people generally thought the skittle offer was quite laughable. I wanted to dress the mannequins in a long "cami dress," having camis layered in a rainbow color scheme, but alas the visual department would not allow it because "it wasn't something anyone would actually wear." Someone should tell that to Macy's because those crazies dress their mannequins in head-to-toe flowers for some parade they throw every year. However, I was allowed to make an illustration that we printed and to which we attached the skittles and our business cards. Its a goal of mine to keep up my illustration practice, and hopefully in the future, I can do some freelance illustration in addition to my fashion design.