All fashion students were offered two location visit options for the Lasell Fashion New York City trip scheduled for Oct. 25. When signing up, fashion students could choose between the design-focused Tailory Group or the merchandising and media marketing-focused Nordstrom Group.
The Tailory Group is a design company that focuses on custom tailoring and the Shao Yang collection. Through this experience, designers had the opportunity to gain insight into the business, product, practices, and customer.
The Nordstrom Group would be given a tour of the flagship store and focus on the merchant, visuals, and management of the business.
I attended the Nordstrom Group with Professor Rosemary Ledger and Professor Kristin Kinsky. Through this experience, the students of this group learned about the Nordstrom flagship store’s history and how they have adapted to the new market from their visual merchandising to their omnichannel as a whole.
As a group, we met with Lasell alumni Matais Voltmer for an information session. Voltmer majored in fashion communication, a program that is now known as fashion media and marketing, and was heavily involved in Polished Magazine as a stylist and creative director. Currently, Voltmer works as the visual production and events associate alongside John Seery, who is in charge of community and customer relations of the NYC Nordstrom flagship store.
Voltmer and Seery started by providing a brief summary of their journey in the fashion industry and how they got to their current positions in their career. Voltmer communicated how he began at Carhartt primarily to build his financial ability, then made an effort to move out to New York City regardless of whether he landed a job or not yet.
Voltmer made a point to note to the students that “sometimes you just got to jump,” and that to grow in this industry, you have to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Through the visual merchandising aspect of the presentation, Voltmer dove into his role in all the visuals on the sales floor and window displays. Seery expressed his passion for the brand through his role in community and customer relations and how he has grown in the industry making connections with high-end designers and A-list celebrities.
Seery also gave insight into the Nordstrom company’s history. Formed in 1901, Nordstrom continues to operate as a family-owned corporation that immigrated from Norway and began as a shoe store, hence their attention to detail in the shoe department.
Additionally, Seery spoke about the personalized experience Nordstrom generates through appointment-based stylists, access to two bars and two restaurants, a beauty bar, facials and massage services built into the department store. To enhance Nordstrom’s consumer outreach to the younger generations, Seery explained that the company embraces the idea that “You don’t need to spend a ton of money to shop with us.” This is an influential take on how retailers’ customer service with luxury goods could be in the future. Once the meeting finished, I felt we all gained valuable insight into the fashion business industry
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