This week’s style file is for all of you Lou’s out there who find inspiration in menswear. Believe it or not, there are a decent amount of men working around this office, and their fashion is just as much fun to observe as the ladies.
Our (fairly new) production assistant is one of the sharp men making a statement here. He has an eye for good fashion with tailored pieces, luxe sweaters, and vintage details. I love that he’s not afraid to wear a patterned sock, and how sharp does he look in those men’s high-water pants?? You can pretty much bet he’ll have a button-up shirt on, but the range of color, pattern, and fabric combinations in the outfit as a whole steer it away from ever getting boring. There’s a true refined quality to the way he dresses that takes a good eye to pull off.
Funky jewelry – check. Little black boots – check. Great floppy hat – check again…
Our senior designer for sweaters here at Free People has a modern day rock star style. She’s a master of textures, and knows how to rock a great sweater outfit (as she should). Just by looking at her style you can tell she’s an expert.
Although you’ll often find her in sweaters which are soft and cozy, there’s a great grunge quality to the way she dresses. She’ll mix in tattered pieces and vintage tees while piling on jewelry for that right amount of edge. I especially love the feather earrings that she often wears. Not only are they sweet pieces, but she will only wear one at a time, and it looks awesome.
She has a great tattoo that says “feed the good” above a wolf. The words were inspired by a Native American folktale:
“An old Cherokee told his grandson, ‘My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, & ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, & truth.’ The boy thought about it, and asked, ‘Grandfather, which wolf wins?’ The old man quietly replied, ‘The one you feed.’”
Our office coordinator has a courageous coolness about the way she dresses. There’s nothing quiet about how she presents herself. You can almost guarantee she’ll have on an awesome loud print or a bright color if not pasted across her lips. Perhaps what I covet most about her wardrobe, are the true pieces that make it up – her funky fringe jacket, cool vintage pin, artisan rings, and perfectly grunge tee – all seemingly one-of-a-kind (if not so). She knows how to pull them all together with attitude. Whatever look she is going after she makes it fearless and exhilarating. Check out what she wore this week…
This week’s style-file girl is one of our employees from the NYC showroom. She’s the fun loving girl behind wholesale sales to specialty stores which means that any time you see our brand in a specialty store, she helped get it there! Here’s a bit about her life and the style she lives it with…
I first met this week’s style file girl when she was still an intern. We had one of those classic intern moments with a broken copy machine, ten different types of toner, and too many blinking arrows. We ended up figuring it out while chatting back and forth a bit.
She has now been promoted from intern, to merchandise assistant for knits. She loves her job, but admits that she didn’t always know that she wanted to work in fashion. Her career began as an international business major in college from where she went to teach English in Japan for three years. She traveled all around Southeast Asia and fell in love with Japan and fashion while she was there.
In talking with her, she gave me interesting perspective on what it is about the fashion there that interested her so much – no matter how funny or different it is, the people really dress however they want. They stick out as an individual, which is an interesting thing to see expressed in a society that is so strongly community based. To further explain, she shared two of her favorite Japanese street fashion blogs with me: style-arena and Japanese streets. I’ve added the blogs to the list of blogs that I follow I found them so interesting. The style is far out, but totally cool and inspirational.
As is her own fashion! She’s a bohemian queen, but mixes in quirky vintage pieces that at times give her outfits a sense of humor. Check out her personal style and what she wore this week ;)
This week at work she was scrambling a bit because her buyer was out on vacation which left her to cover duties she’d never dealt with before. Her department (buying) serves as a central coordinator for planning, design, wholesale, and production, which means there can be a lot to do. On the day that I caught up with her to hear about it she was entering in orders with an archaic looking system (although it’s not) to be sent to our producers. This is a highly detailed process involving lots of codes. When placing an order everything is considered from cost, color, and fabric to delivery method, ship date, and unit count. It’s amazing how fast she can do it at this point. Any one of the components can get messed up at anytime, anywhere in the supply chain, and a lot of her job also involves cleaning up the mistakes to make sure that the customer gets what she wants when she wants it.
I know you’re already intrigued by how interesting this girl is, but to further interest you – here is her survey. (How cute are her doodles? They made me smile (= )
Meet this week’s style file girl – the visual merchandising assistant at the Free People home offices. She is one of the sweetest most humble people, and when you visit her desk you’re sure to get licked up and down by her friendly (canine) partner in crime, Dill. I was drawn to her style because of the perfect blend of classic elements and rocker edge that she seems to have mastered. You can almost bet she’ll have on at least one piece that you want to rip off of her for yourself – namely, the abundance of statement necklaces, hair pieces, and perfect tees that she has collected over the years. Another thing I love about her style is the hair. She has mastered the art of hair pinning for awesome intricate up-dos, and has tons of neat head bands, scarves, turbans, and hats that she works in. Maybe it’s her easy personality that makes it all look so effortless, but she sure knows how to top off a look achieving great results.
Her styling skills don’t just keep her looking like perfection each day, but they also keep our stores looking like perfection. In her job as a visual merchandiser, she styles mannequins with outfit ideas and comes up with merchandising concepts and color stories for our stores. Another cool part of her job involves selecting all of the music to be played in Free People stores. Every other Friday she and the visual team go through their new selections and choose their favorites. After all the ideas have been developed she maintains communication with store contacts, so they are well aware of the big ideas and everything going on.
Meet one of our store managers that works in our Chicago stores, I met up with her in Chicago to talk about fashion, style and blogs. She’s a cool cat with the sickest jewelry. Meet Alyssa and check out her lovely tumblr. When I met her, I was obsessed with her insane jewelry collection stacked on her hands, she let me know that some of it was made by her best friend who happens to have a trunk show in Chicago this weekend, if you’re there you should check it out!
About me: My three most favorite feelings in the world are: feeling well-traveled, feeling inspired & feeling loved. Having the chance to travel is extremely exciting for me; I lust for the opportunity to explore the unfamiliar and seek as many new adventures as possible. Inspiration comes to me from most all places, especially travel, my friends, and blogging. Now, having my own blog, I’m challenged to come up with creative ways to give inspiration to all my readers as well. When I’m not working at Free People or blogging, I’m usually spending time with super sweet boyfriend, my family, or my amazing friends. I believe having a tight knit group of people who love and support you & who you love and support in return, is essential. My style icon has to be Erin Wasson, she has such a free & easy, relaxed look that I aspire to when I get dressed each morning! …she is totally a Free People girl too; she was just shopping in my store on Monday!
Quirky, creative, lovable, giggly, cool…these are all words to describe the assistant designer for Meadow here at Free People who is also this week’s Style File Girl. And boy does this girl have style. I envy how creatively cool she looks each day, and it never appears to take her much effort. She alters pieces in unique ways, thrifts like it’s her job (okay, it partly is), and throws in unexpected extraneous items to pull an outfit together. It’s tough to explain why exactly it all works, so I’ll just let the photos speak for themselves. Check out what she wore this week…
Even though her look changes from day to day she certainly has her favorite accessories. I’m a big fan of the watch she always wears.
And what about those tattoos?
Her favorite is the acorn (far left) inspired by her childhood self who made her grandmother watch Peter Pan twice a day, every day. The acorn is from the version with real people in which Wendy asks Peter for a kiss, but since he’s just a boy, he doesn’t know what that is and gives her an acorn. Later on in the movie she’s struck down by an arrow, but you later come to find out the arrow pierced the acorn instead. It saved her life.
The creative spirit that she uses in her appearance is just as apparent in her job as the assistant designer on team Meadow. She pumps out awesome piece after awesome piece, often inspired by vintage clothing that she picks apart, blogs, and her coworkers. This Wednesday she was working on updating sketches she presented for setup to meet the buyers’ and head designers’ requests. She now has to show the garments in flat form along with fabric swatches, body, and any artwork to be used in the piece. At the end of it all, she puts it together into a nice presentation so buyers can decide exactly what they’ll buy and how much.
The coolness doesn’t stop there. Her work space and home are just as one-of-a-kind as the outfits she wears and the creativity she brings to her job. I mean, who has a pregnant Barbie to accompany them at their desk every day? Safe to say, the space she inhabits is never boring.
And of course, I wouldn’t leave you all without a fun questionnaire. Time to let the woman speak for herself
Meet this week’s style inspiration – the design assistant for New Romantics here at Free People. I was immediately attracted by her laid back and beautiful – yet approachable – look. I checked in on her daily to get to know her better and bring you her week in style file.
In her romantic, somewhat demure, way of dressing she reflects her personality perfectly. She seems quiet and shy at first, but is then sweet beyond words as soon as you approach her. This is a girl who doesn’t wear outfits that shout “look at me,” but rather, “come closer.” Pay attention and you’ll notice a dainty necklace or a gorgeous etched bracelet.
As assistant designer for the Free People New Romantics, she will be given a fabric chosen by her boss, the head designer for New Romantics, and then has to come up with styles using what she is given. The process usually starts with a sketch. Her sketches themselves are amazingly inspirational to look at. She will then drape the piece – usually doing about one a day. After she’s done draping, she will pass everything along to tech who takes it from there. This week she was already working on things for next summer.
Today our lovely lady of the week styled an outfit from the sample closet here at Free People. She decided to centralize the outfit around the Avenue West Chemise, her favorite piece of the moment, because she absolutely loves how pretty and versatile it is. She wanted to style it unbuttoned, and worn as a bed jacket today, but she said she would also wear it as a dress or with more layers in the fall if it were a piece in her own closet. “Not only is it versatile, but it’s versatile in two ways: day to night and summer to fall.”
She layered the chemise over her own jeans and a rocker style tank to play down its femininity and give the outfit some edge. The HIGH platform shoes in a nude pink color that she chose had that same balance of pretty vs. edgy. Then she mixed it all up by throwing some earthy flavor into the mix with a fringed suede shoulder bag. It’s unexpectedness kept the outfit interesting, and added a whole new level of detail. The whole look was topped off with simple jewelry, a long jade necklace, to avoid distracting from the elegant fringed chemise and the outfit’s other contrasting elements.
Our assistant web merchandiser was amazingly styled again today! She looks so free and happy in her flowing teal dress and ruffled flower-print tank. The dress, a piece from the Free People Convertibles Category, is one of her favorites for mixing and matching. Today, she layered it perfectly with a feminine tank, but she said she’s also been able to dress it up for formal events with a pretty pair of shoes, wear it as a belted casual dress, and, in colder weather, paired it with a cozy sweater. What she loves most about it? The bright and cheerful color =)
What perfects the outfit though, is that straw hat! She picked it up at a sample sale not too long ago, and it’s just right for the sunny day we’re having here today. You can tell it got her in a good mood, because she laughingly shared one of her favorite cheesy jokes with me. I’m giggling at my desk just thinking of it. Thought you’d all enjoy a little chuckle too, so, “have you heard?”
It’s day two of getting to know our employee of the week, and check out how adorable she was looking today! I love the combo of the ditzy polka-dot shirt underneath a girly denim romper. She looks innocent and flirty all at the same time. Definitely a Candy/Meadow combo just like she said…
Aside from checking out what she was wearing, I wanted to know what she was working on today. Essentially, she’s the one that makes sure you can all find what you’re looking for on our site, and today she’s working furiously to get all of the product from our July catalog (which also drops today!) up on the website.
She goes through, page by page, merchandising the clothing and accessories into their relevant categories for the web. We’re moving into fall already, so she notices missing categories as she goes along, and makes a note to have them added in later. This needs to be done in correspondence with every catalog, look book, blog post – anything that links to clothing someone might want to buy.
I have to say, it sounds tedious, but I’m incredibly grateful to this pretty lady for all her hard work – it means I have an even easier time of filling my closet with Free People clothes… Whoops =P
