http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYfybYDm3-A&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Mondays

Can I just start out by saying, this blog is going to soon be spreading its post subjects to a couple of new exciting worlds, worlds that I have long been passionate about but have previously lacked funding, space, and motivation. I will now be pushing into the interior decoration of my house, which will happen slowly and I will share some DIY with everyone. I also will be pushing myself to cook at LEAST one gourmet meal a week. Although I very much appreciate and love eating out, I just now have someone to feed that will appreciate the gesture and also I have watched July and Julia too many times to shut off my culinary passion. So I hope to keep fit, give my place a face-lift, cook amazing food, and stick to the good old basic of this blog, Visual Design.

So today’s, Monday and we all know how Mondays are. Any other day of the week every time I look at the clock forty-five minutes have passed, but today only 2-5 minutes would elapse with every glance. I had a vendor (brands, Levi’s, pay someone to come out and work on their merch in our store) who came in and moved around my mannequins and gave me some bs excuse for why she did it; saying that Macy’s told Levi’s that mannequins cannot go on top of tables because of their risk of falling. Too bad I know my shit and therefore know that Macys is slowly becoming more and more risky with their placement of visual elements. So after she bitched at me about her merch being in the stock rooms and not on the floor and talked about some signing that she needed, she finally left and I got to reset everything to how it was this morning before the bimbo arrived.

I should mention that I was already in a grumpy mood today following the failed startup of my car [I ignored my gas indicator light for too long] and had to walk to work. I really wouldn’t have minded walking to work except for two reasons. It was freezing this morning, and I was walking alongside about 15 high school students on their way to the bus stop.

Honorable Mentions

So its Monday, most tiring day of the week to many. I was awoken this morning by my boyfriend who was chipper and ready for the day. I soon after got a text saying that my coworker, again, would be about an hour late to work. This is starting to bother me now, but as long as I get my job, I need not worry about others right? So I got to work and got to do my favorite thing, dressing mannequins. You’d think that I get to dress mannequins everyday but that is a false belief. Visual trimmers love the days when they get to update whatever they want because there is rarely time for this. So I am dedicating this post to the honorable mentions at the Macy’s Men’s Store right now. The April collections are arriving and on time might I say.

My first collection is I.N.C., which is one of Macy’s private labels. The brand is usually one of my least favorites and I have learned to ignore the lack of fashion that the company has chosen to put right at the entrance of the store (pictured as the header of this post). This April I.N.C. has designed a collection of slim fitting linen and cotton suits, purple plaids, and khaki shirts. When it is all put together the group really looks great. With a little bit of good merchandising the store entrance might actually be appealing.

second brand will be Kenneth Cole REACTION, again only available ★ Macy’s. I have watched Kenneth Cole’s designs for a few years now and I have always loved the work. The Macy’s line is a bit younger feeling and also more casual, which comes with age I think. The pops of colors such as purple orange and yellow always make the collections pop.

Finally I will end with a brand new label that is Only ★ Macy’s called Sons of Intrigue. The collection followed is neighbor Bar III to Macy’s as the two headliners for the revamped Impulse department. The brand trickled in with well tailored pants and jackets and surprises like cotton striped V-neck t-shirts that make an odd pair but somehow make since together. There is really no description that I can give that truly describes this brand so the image will have to suffice.

A little complaint that I came up with today was all of the “grunge” that I see in the Inland Empire of California. For the most part I truly ignore my dislike of this, dare I say, trend. But people need to start washing their hair. I understand going a couple, maybe even a few days without shampooing but when your hair is so oily that it starts separating into thick strands made up of hairs and oil, you need to wash it. Not only is it gross, but im sure your face doesn’t appreciate your nasty hair clogging its pores. Idk, I’m a clean freak which I guess is rare for someone as young as me.

oh and lastly, i now its a bit weird, but i saw that a friend of mine had commented on some random boys Facebook picture and it caught my attention. this is exactly what i want my chest to look like for the summer, and i just cant get there!!!

Meat Meat Meat

In the words of Rachel Zoe “I Die.” Last night I started my assent to heaven after eating at my new favorite Pasadena, CA hotspot named Porto Alegre. It is a Brazilian BBQ restaurant and it will change your life! I am pretty much 75% vegetarian and for me to say this is huge. The concept of the restaurant is that you pay a flat rate for your dinner, which includes an AMAZING salad bar of smoked salmon, shrimp dishes, lots and lots of yummy vegetables and a couple traditional Brazilian dishes. After you make your rounds about the salad bar you have a two-sided device that pretty much is a signal for people to bring you some meat. And boy do they bring it! You get every kind of steak you can imagine; duck, quail, chicken, and sausages and they keep it coming until you turn over your device to the red side. For dessert we had fried bananas freshly prepared and brought to our table. The ervice was fast, the food was amazing, and the price wasn’t bad, especially for a restaurant located on Colorado blvd. I would recommend that if you are in the area take some friends, get dressed up and make it a night!. Ending with Rachel Zoe, ”it was ba-na-nas.”

Skinny Jeans

Happy “Hump Day!” so today was the big Deep Dive, really I know nothing until tomorrow when all of the visual people meet up and discuss the visit, so stay tuned. But a bit of news, as I just tweeted [follow me], I had a pretty productive afternoon. I went in to work early this morning and therefore got off early so I got to work on my homework, took the puppy to the dog park, ran four miles, and now I’d say its about dinner time. i just want to show you my puppy at this very moment

So today as I was dressing one of my Urban Island mannequins I noticed how tight the size 33x32 pants were on my guy. This made me remember that even Tasso Elba is making slim fit pants. In high school I put safety pins in my denim to alter them into slim fitting denim because it was impossible for me to find any (this was 2006). I also remember shopping for my prom get up in 2007 and trying to find black fitted trousers and every store looked at me like I was crazy I finally settled on a pair of producers from EXPRESS that I took to be altered. The only tailor in my hometown (Barstow) was located in the WalMart and hardly spoke a word of engrish. She told me that my pants were fine the way they were and that I didn’t need to waist my $8 to get them fitted. So I left. Now working with denim on a daily basis I have realized that almost every company is making an effort to slim down the male silhouette including Diesel, Levi’s, Alfani, Abercrombie, GAP, and im pretty sure kid’s brands have also forged their way into the skinny, sometimes super skinny, world. Someone told me that only gays wear tight jeans but I just want to say fuck you to that person. Yes, I may be gay but I just saw prince Charles wearing slim denim on his recent trip to Australia, so if you spit more game than the prince or if you design a fabulous line of clothes and would like to dispute that all men can wear skinny denim please shut the hell up.

On the music front, I just want to say that Britney spears is over and over making a damn fool of herself, if it weren’t for her catchy tunes, she’d be done!

LONG LIVE GAGA

Deep Dive

Sorry about that lapse in bloggage, but now I am back. Quickly, I will portray my weekend to you and then we’ll get this party started.

So tomorrow is the day that all of my hard work has been leading up to. Tomorrow is one of my store’s Deep Dives. A deep dive is when all of the big bosses come to our store to make sure that we’re not fucking everything up. They are always watching how things are selling and where the best locations are for each brand is, so when the deep dive comes up we have to have everything ship shape so that a lack of sales doesn’t mean that we’re failing. For the whole work day there are meetings on sales, floor walks to see how the store is working and then each big boss personally works on the floor to show the associates what real work looks like. As a visual trimmer it’s usually safe to say that very few failures are caused by us, actually almost never are we the reason for loss of sales. The reason that we stress out is because we love our store and we want everything to be perfect (that’s why we merchandise, help customers, and pretty much any other thing that needs to be done in the store that we’re not paid for) we’re like the store’s whores.

Now onto my personal life, which may or may not be as dry as my work life right now. Pretty much I have come to the conclusion that it is NOT a good thing when the Starbucks people start preparing a grandé upside down caramel macchiato and a double warmed blueberry scone right when they see you in the morning. I think that that shows just how dull a person is, that they don’t ever change up their drink, they wear black everyday, and come in at the same time daily. I should just switch it up on them order a Frappuccino and a donut, wear all bright colors, and come in around lunchtime. They would at this point probably already contacted the authorities alerting them that “the guy from Macy’s” is assumed to be kidnapped and murdered.

That’s all, im tired

Productivity

Do you ever finish a project that you’ve been working at for a few hours look at your work; you’ve done a great job, but then think that you just wasted those last few hours? Today I felt precisely that way after I clocked out of work for the day.

I got a lot done today I finished making my men’s active department beautiful, redressed like 10 men that were wearing nothing but clearance clothes, and I also found a bunch of missing artwork. But after reformatting six walls, hanging three plaques and eight pieces of rediscovered art I looked behind me to see that there was still more work to do. I guess as a visual trimmer you are never truly happy with your work. My sales in that department should increase tremendously based on the new location of it alone, with my visual touch its pretty much forcing shoppers to want Nike like a zombies loves warm flesh. but the thing is that there are so many more things to make it better (white shelving, redressing forms, steaming…) Working in my position there is no end in sight; tomorrow’s Friday but I know that once I finish the work I have planned for tomorrow there is going to be plenty waiting for me Monday morning.

On the bright side, while I was redressing things this morning I found a few must-haves. The first is a Diesel tee that is white with some embroidery and some lettering on it, a clean statement perfect for the beach this summer. The second is a pair of Polo Ralph Lauren swim trunks that sit mid thigh. They’re red checkered and they have Polo’s new Big Pony logo on the leg. So being that I didn’t want to spend the prices for both… I just bought one, the shirt can come closer to beach season. I got the SHORTS and I plan on wearing them at a friend’s birthday party in Newport at Westport Mansion this weekend. I really don’t give a rat’s ass if it’s freezing, I’ll still get my drink on and “rock that shit like fashion.”

Not much to say on the food side of things today, except for I think everyone should get some of Costco’s amazing spinach dip to snack on with pita chips after a long day.