A

In te r n s hip No te b o o k

Summer 2012

EMMA HULSEY
FASHION MERCHANDISING MAJOR
Freshman

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In te r n s hip No te b o o k

Summer 2012

Table of Contents
Store Information ............................................................................................................................................................ Pages 3-4 Goals ....................................................................................................................................................................................... Page 5 Details of Employment .................................................................................................................................................. Pages 6-8 Merchandise Information ............................................................................................................................................ Pages 9-10 Portfolio ........................................................................................................................................................................ Pages 11-17 Interviews ..................................................................................................................................................................... Pages 18-23 Weekly Internship Reports ....................................................................................................................................... Pages 24-30 Final Report ......................................................................................................................................................................... Page 31 Analysis of Internship Experience .................................................................................................................................. Page 32 The End! ............................................................................................................................................................................... Page 33

Northwest Missouri State University Maryville, Missouri Advisor: Ms. Goudge 2

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Store Information
General Anthropologie is an international chain store that started in Philadelphia. That is where the Home Ofce is as well. They sell womens apparel and home items, but like to consider it a lifestyle store rather than just apparel and home. One of the sayings that visual merchandisers always keep in mind is the unimagined experience. They strive to create moments in the store where the customer can just stop for a minute and look. The store that I interned at has been open for ve years and is located in a mall in an upscale part of Omaha called Regency. It is surrounded by higher end stores and restaurants as well as residential areas. There are about 20 employees.

A oor plan is located on the next page.

Store Hours Monday-Friday: 10AM-8PM Saturday: 10AM-6PM Sunday: 12PM-5PM

Interior Appearance The store that I interned at is rustic and modern. The oor is reclaimed barn wood and the walls are cement some that are wallpapered and painted. The whole store is divided into different home and apparel concepts. These concepts change in the fall and spring every year. I will go over the concepts that were present during my internship later in this notebook.

Fashion Image The average customer that shops at Anthropologie is upper 20s and older, so the clothing is sophisticated and high quality. You can nd a number of unique items throughout the store, but the main feel of the store is ethnic, modern, and vintage. The concepts are thought through so they can target different types of customers with all different lifestyles and tastes.

Services The main services that Anthropologie offers are a personal shopper and telephone/mail shopping. The personal shopper is a free service that is provided to anyone that wants it. Our personal shopper in Omaha is Nancy. She is an older woman who teaches art as her other job. She does an amazing job relating to the customer and nding things they will like. Her goal isnt to sell you something, but to nd things that you will love and that will work for your

Northwest Missouri State University Maryville, Missouri Advisor: Ms. Goudge 3

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Summer 2012

occasion or wardrobe. If a customer calls ahead and sets an appointment up, Nancy will ask a few questions and pull some items to start with. Telephone and mail shopping is utilized at Anthropologie often. If our store doesnt have a certain item we will track it down and get it mailed to the customer. Once we even received a call from an overseas store that was looking for a specic item. Everyday someone puts together all of the mail orders we received the day before and sends them out. They also have the anthro card in place. This cards goal is to establish a meaningful rewarding relationship with the customer. Anthropologie uses it to identify the customer and her buying trends and patterns (what pants with what bottoms, etc.). Anthro card members receive special emails and invitations to in-store events. They also have an electronic record of their purchases and will always have their receipts. I think that Anthropologies services are sufcient for the customers. Most of the women dont need anything much, so what they have in place is perfect.

Concepts As I mentioned before, each room in Anthropologie has a different concept. These concepts change in the fall and spring. I mainly worked with the apparel concepts so I will describe those. The front of store concept was called Sunset. It was supposed to give off the feeling of a woman on a relaxing vacation at a glamorous Palm Beach resort. She would be wearing red lipstick and would sit by the pool all day reading a book through her circle sunglasses. All of the clothes were classy and glamorous with pops of turquoise mixed among them. Pool totes also had a big presence in this room. The main wall in Sunset had a large turquoise ombre canvas on it and their were palm trees all over this room. The second concept was called Niko and was located directly to the left of the front of store. Niko is a very fashion forward, romantic woman. She has a passion for jewel tones and strong prints, so this section of the store felt more bohemian and the most natural of all of them. One piece that I could really see a woman like Niko wearing was a oor length navy and burnt orange jumper. The last apparel concept was called Eva and Elliot, or E and E for short. Eva and Elliot are twins that live in New York City and love to travel. Although they are identical twins, they both have distinctly opposite tastes in everything. Eva is super girly girl fashion illustrator while Elliot is your classic tomboy and a writer. The concept implies that they are so different, yet since they are twins they can share each others clothes which makes each closet have a fun twist. A lot of our summer dresses lived here, but the pop color was navy. I say this with quotes because navy obviously doesnt pop, but it is what gave the room the tomboy edge. The majority of our denim and blazers also lived in this room. As you can tell, the concepts are all well thought out and complete stories. It was interesting to see Megan and the other employees different takes on the concepts. This aspect of Anthropologie made me really understand that without a purpose your displays arent going to be half as effective as they are when they have a real meaning.

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Personal Internship Goals

Participate in: Learning of special sales approaches of the store Planning and assisting in departmental rearrangement Changing of interior display in your department or elsewhere Planning an area for sale merchandise Taking a periodic stock count Taking markdowns, markups

Learn about: Store history and retailing philosophy Functions of personnel management Job performance standards Basic responsibilities of each position in the store Store layout and organization

Work with: Central stockroom Display department Receiving and marking Security (special merchandise controls)

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Details of Employment
Interview Process My interview was much different than it is for regular employees, so I will just express what Anthropologie looks for in general. One of the biggest things that they like to see is that you are customer service driven. In regular interviews they ask aesthetic questions to get a feel for whether you are in touch with fashion or not and they can also have you outt a mannequin. It is extremely important that employees understand who the customer is and what type/age of women shop at Anthropologie.

Training For the most part the training at Anthropologie is on the y and learn as you go. In the beginning all new employees are given a 101 Handbook with all the rules and regulations in detail and it is reviewed with a manager. After that training takes place in the moment. More formal training is used the higher up you move in the company.

Dress Regulations The basic rule for dress is that it must reect something that Antropologie does or would sell. Items that are forbidden are denim shorts, sneakers and ip ops, shorts above ngertip length, and clothing with other brands logo/ name. All employees should be professionally dressed and stylish.

Employee Discounts Paid employees receive 40% off of all regular-priced apparel and accessories and 25% off of home items in stores and online. Each month employees are given a certain number of items that they are allowed to purchase for 60% off. As in intern I received 25% off apparel and accessories and 15% off of home items. All discounts exclude sale items.

Return Policy All Anthropologie merchandise is unconditionally guaranteed. Refunds will be credited back to the original method of payment.

Management The way that management works at Anthropologie is every manager has a peer. The Visual Managers peer would be the Store Manager. The Apparel Department Managers peer would be the Home Department Manager. There is one more pair of managers underneath these two that are just managers of operations. They mainly act as oor managers during the day and perform all the closing and opening tasks with the registers.

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Details of Employment contd

Employee Hours & Payment Managers at Anthropologie are required to work 40 hours a week and associates are hourly based on need. The employees that work 32 or more hours a week (full time) receive health, dental, and a 401k. Schedules are sent out for the week on Thursday. The store uses the On Call system based on the revenues throughout the day. The pay period is every two weeks and paychecks are sent out the Thursday after the pay period ends. To keep track of hours Anthropologie used ADP Timesaver and employees are required to clock in and out. As per Nebraska Labor Laws, if you are scheduled for eight or more hours you receive an hour lunch break. Anything from six to eight hours receives a half hour and under six hours receives a fteen minute break. Personnel Activities All employees use walk talkies to communicate with each other when they are stepping off the oor or need assistance in some way. If any errors or major problems occur a manager handles the situation. There is a formal rating system, but it is private and as an intern I was not in a position to learn more about it. They did tell me, however, that it basically keeps track of employees strengths and weaknesses.

Morale Employee morale was always high whenever I got the chance to be on the oor. The employees genuinely like Anthropologie and enjoy working together. I loved getting the chance to interact and get to know some of them. They were all welcoming and eager to learn more about me as well. It was comforting to know that I wasnt just an intern around to do the dirty work to them, but that they actually cared to get to know who I am and what I want do with my life and career. Outside of this natural morale, inspiration days are held once a quarter. These days are when the employees all sit down and either take a look at the new concepts or create different inspiration boards to keep the creative juices owing. I got to participate in an inspiration day and it was truly amazing to bounce ideas around with other creative people like me and see what we could come up with. On the holidays managers will host pot luck days in the break room to ease any tension or stress that may build during that time.

Break Room The break room is unlike the average cafeteria where you would sit and have lunch. Everything has some sort of creative air to it. All over the walls are photo compilations that an employee found inspiring. There is a chalkboard wall that has a drawing of a cute calendar with important upcoming dates on it. On top of the employee lockers is a collection of lost and found mugs and cups that customers and employees have left behind that is quite eclectic. My favorite thing that was up on the wall during my internship was a picture of the famous Iris Apfel looking quirky and elegant as always in her thick rimmed glasses. To me this picture represented the eccentricity and stylishness of all the employees and interns at Anthropologie.

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In te r n s hip No te b o o k Art Room

Summer 2012

The art room is where I worked with Abby and the other three interns on the days that I was working on displays. It was a constant organized mess and I still dont know how we t ve of us in it on a regular basis. This room contained more supplies than my high school art room did I think! Anything you could ever want to create with was there. We always listened to Pandora on someones iPhone and chatted while we worked in this room. Our inspiration for displays was always posted on the bulletin board and the intern biographies were posted on the door. We made the beautiful display on the front cover of this notebook in that room. Needless to say, the art room is close and dear to everyones hearts.

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Merchandise Information
Merchandising Policies The store should be loved is what denes the merchandising standards in the handbook. Basically, the standards are equivalent to that of a Nordstrom or Von Maur. Hangars are supposed to be nger space apart with all hangar heads facing the same direction and at same angle. Size runs are supposed to be kept orderly with doubles of either the small and medium or 27 and 28. The goal is to keep the store looking clean and organized all of the time in order to maintain the high end feel.

Morning Meeting Every morning at about 9:30 a manager leads a morning meeting in which we discuss what the goals of the day are, how we did last year on that certain day, and any upcoming events or promotions. They would always ask what the interns were working on and when it would all be done. All of that only takes a few minutes and since we have a whole half hour sometimes we do different activities. My favorite was when we all had to pick out an outt that we thought t Beau Monde, one of the new fall concepts. It was fun to see other peoples interpretations of it and a good change from the normal routine.

Processing/Stock Room When items come in the mail they are all packaged in separate plastic bags with larger bags grouping items that are the same. Each box has a different class of items. Pants, sweaters, cut and sews, dresses, etc. are all a different class. The stock room is organized rst by these classes and then by the brand. When a new shipment comes in the rst thing you do is take it all out of the plastic and put a sample of each item up on a moving rack. This helps the Visual Merchandiser decide where to place the new merchandise without having to move all of it every time. After this step you put a sensor on every item. The sensor goes on the wearers right side of the garment. The pokey side of the sensor goes straight in the seam of the garment and the receiver part goes on the inside. After this you put the garment on the right kind of hangar and pull one size run. The rest goes in back stock until it is needed. All of this is performed in the stock room. When there is no one in the stock room it must remain locked. If something is needed from it there is a key at the cash wrap and all managers have one. This is called a back stock check.

The Brands Anthropologie carries many brands. Some may only have one item in our store and some may have 30. Some of the more common ones that we see are 7 For All Mankind, Elevenses, Bordeaux, Sparrow, J Brand, Tiny, Level 99, and Capri Blue.

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In te r n s hip No te b o o k Price Zones

Summer 2012

As Ive said before, Anthropologie is a higher end store for Omaha at least. A few examples are the dresses that range from $88 to $188, the tops from $48 to $128, and the candles from $12 to $38. There are even pricier items online that the Omaha store does not get in because the market isnt as big for those type of things as it is in California or New York City.

Inventory Every month a selective count of a few things is done, but the full inventory is only done annually and it just so happened that it occurred while I was an intern. During this time a physical count of everything in the entire store is done. On this day as many employees and friends as possible came in at 5:00 AM and started to scan merchandise in on the guns. I wasnt included in the process, but I know that it took them two full days to get everything sorted out and that they arent allowed to do it while customers are present.

Sale Room One of the many signature aspects of Anthropologie is the Sale Room. There is one of these in every store and it is always lled with awesome deals. The Sale room is organized simply in color order. This way not much thought has to go into it and all the focus can be on the main sales oor. Any clothing that is slow moving is put in this room with a discounted price and it moves faster. A lot of sales are done every day from the Sale Room and I think it is a great aspect for the store to have. Home Ofce makes all the decisions of what to discount and when by watching what merchandise is trending and what isnt getting a lot of attention. They also may ask the opinion of store managers on conference calls. All markdowns are done on Sunday night and Monday morning.

Advertising The main form of advertisement that Anthropologie utilizes is online. Whether it is through emails, social networks, or the website theyre on it. I even follow Anthropologie on Instagram (a photo-sharing social network on smartphones). Other than internet they have the catalog sent out every month like the one included in this notebook. These are the two main forms that the store uses.

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Portfolio Side By Side Mannequins

! This pair of mannequins was probably the biggest task I was given as an intern. They are located right by the only door to the store and are seen by everyone that walks by or eats at the restaurant across from them. ! I chose the blue dress

rstly because it was towards the end of my internship and the Fourth of July was approaching and secondly because the blue went with the Sunset concept that lived in the front of store. ! After I had the dress

picked out I needed to gure out how I would complement it without using another one of the summer dresses. I chose these light skinny jeans because they dont take away from the dress, but they still have a presence of their own. ! The button up on the right

mannequin is one of my favorite items of the summer and it complemented the orange pop of the scarf perfectly, so it was an easy choice. Then to tie the pink from the shirt into the left mannequin I added the dip dyed ats. I love these mannequins and they got great reactions from not only Megan, but the other employees. I was thankful that I got to use all that I had learned from them in one nal task.

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Jewelry Display Table

Details in weekly journal.

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Lounge Wear Mannequin

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Megan assigned me the task of outtting this mannequin in the loun-

gewear section of the store. This mannequin usually gets neglected since it is in the back of the store and it is not a huge focal point, but it is still important to show the customer that you can look cute even when youre sleeping. ! My purpose behind putting these orange sleep pants with the pink de-

tailing on them was to bring out the pop color in the bedspread seen above. This room was mainly blues and greens with the accents only coming from the bed. Megan loved the idea of popping the pink, but still toning it down with the white top. Side note: we sold out of these pants about two weeks after this mannequin was done.

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Cash Wrap Display

Details in weekly journal. Materials used: straws, hot glue, staples, and spray paint.

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Coneower Display Closeups

Details in weekly journal. Materials used: styrofoam balls, q-tips, pins, natural dye from blackberries, lemon juice, paper, wire, piping, hot glue, spray adhesive, spray paint, and paper mache.
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Coneower Display Process

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Coneower Display Process contd

! These are the other lovely interns that I got to work with this summer! As different as we all were, I really enjoyed getting to know them all and learning from them. From left to right their names are Samantha, Megan, and Grace. Also, this is a decent shot of how crammed we were into the art room. ! Anyways, here we were

working on the petals for the cone owers. At this point they are wired and being painted. Samantha and Megan are doing the rst coat while Grace glues down the edges of the petals so they dont peel up when they dry. ! After this step we use

lemon juice on top of the paint. This was one of the coolest and most mind boggling things I learned during my internship. The acidity in the lemon juice can actually alter the color of things! When used a little bit on top of our natural dye it gave the petals a pretty pink tone (demonstrated below). This added depth and a more natural look that we all loved.

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Interviews
Greg Davis I was with my dad helping pick out some new clothes at a store called PinStripes on the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri when his personal shopper Greg mentioned that he had been a buyer earlier in his career. I knew that I had to interview him for my internship. My dad gave me Gregs information and he was more than willing to set up a phone interview upon email. ! Greg Davis is currently a sales associate at PinStripes on the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. Pinstripes is the

leading menswear shop in Kansas City and my dad shops there for his work clothes. They sell mens fashion for the boardroom to the ballpark so the associates are well educated on all different brands and styles of menswear. Greg has worked at PinStripes for eleven years and generally works 36 hours a week. Prior he was a buyer at Woolf Brothers for eleven years and MMCore for ve years. Mr. Davis earned his college degree in Marketing in 1969 from St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas. At the time when he graduated college there were not many specialized elds like there are today. ! One thing that I made sure to get lots of details on was what he did when he was buying. Greg said that he

bought four times a year, once for each season. Greg bought a variety of items including clothing, furnishings, and sports wear, but he always started with the previous years buying plan and sales made by brand. From there he would go to the market to pick out what he thought would do the best in the upcoming season. He would then bring back his orders and go over them with his manager. Once everything was approved and ordered he would go to the Woolf Brothers stores and explain to the associates why he picked certain items and educate them on the items basically. He would show them exactly how to outt a customer and pair different things as examples. There were eight Woolf Brothers stores in ve different states that he would travel to to do this. Through everything he says his favorite brands are always Armani and Polo. ! Mr. Davis responsibilities and duties at PinStripes include working with the owners closely to make sugges-

tions for items that were successful or that he thinks will be in the upcoming season. He is solely responsible for bringing Samuelson to PinStripes, which is now one of their best selling brands. Overall, the most sold items at PinStripes are dressy sport shirts and dress trousers. He believes that the dot com era killed clothing because it is no longer necessary to be dressy as often. Greg also does all of the mannequins in PinStripes (which I was very impressed with when I was there) as well as helping individual clients like my dad. He expressed to me how important he thinks that displays are. They are the silent salesperson in that they can sell an item without any effort from an associate. ! Gregs judgment on the clothing comes completely from his personal tastes and opinions. What he likes is

what customers will like. The qualities that Mr. Davis thinks are necessary for any position in higher retail are good listening and planning skills as well as personal relation skills. ! When I asked Greg what type of advertising seems to work the best for the store he said hands down direct

mail. PinStripes sends gift certicates towards purchases. For example they will send a deal that gives $50 off a $150 purchase. This type of advertisement added approximately 495+ customers when they rst tried it and denitely upped the foot trafc they got. Greg said that foot trafc breeds more foot trafc, so it is always a good thing.
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In te r n s hip No te b o o k !

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The person that inuenced Mr. Davis career the most was a man by the name of Harry King. He was the

director of stores at MMCore, which is where Greg was before Woolf Brothers. King was tough, encouraging, and always got the most out of people that worked for him. Greg admired him for all these traits as well as his attitude towards his management style. He worked with people until everything got done. This is what inuenced Greg to work hard and become the great professional that he is today. ! Outside of work, Mr. Davis enjoyed tennis and swimming. He loves the author Malcolm Gladwell and rec-

ommended that I read the book Outlier. Apparently it has a lot of information on how to be successful. Other advice he had for me what to nd a store with a good training program. He suggested Nordstrom because they are good about teaching the new employees and they want decision makers and people that dont need approval from higher levels before they do things. ! This interview was the longest that I have done with a total of about 50 minutes on the phone. Some of it

was chit chat, but I really enjoyed all of it. Mr. Davis is an extremely intelligent and wise man. It was easy to see that he has been through it all and come out with some very useful information. I would like to end with this quote that Greg gave me: Selling is real easy; give the customer what they want, when and how they want it.

Megan Distefano ! Although Cherry was the one that hired me and was originally my supervisor for the apparel side of my

internship, she went into labor about two weeks into the process and had her rst kid. Fortunately for me and the rest of Anthropologie Megan was there to step into Cherrys position. Megan was originally the Apparel Department Manager, but when Cherry had to take her leave her new title was Visual Merchandiser. I absolutely loved working under Megan. She is fast paced and extremely knowledgable, so I was able to learn a lot in a small amount of time. ! Megan attended college at the University of Tennessee and gained her Bachelor of Science in Interior Design

with an emphasis in furniture design. From there she went to design school in Denmark for interior bent plywood furniture specically. She has been with Anthropologie since 2008 and generally puts in about 50 hours a week at her position. When she is working she oversees the apparel department, which is 3/4 of the business for the store. She the one that gures out how to merchandise the store and work with the customers in order to sell more. All of the apparel displays are her responsibility, so this includes the layout of the rooms as well as the mannequins. Behind the scenes Megan works with the breakdown of numbers and business reports. She contributes to the numbers that we talk about at morning meeting every morning. ! Characteristics that Megan believes are crucial to positions like hers are assessment skills, the ability to train

and motivate people, as well as the ability to think outside the box. One of the things that she stressed was that you have to be driven and an individual. This applies especially at Anthropologie since everyone there does not t an exact mold. You have to dene yourself and believe that you t that denition to really be successful. The way that Megan personally motivates people is by asking for their ideas and rewarding them when they nd success. She believes that rewarding them and giving them the ownership of their successes is what is going to motivate them to do well in the future. ! The customer denition at Anthropologie in Omaha according to Megan is conservative, well-traveled, and

unique. They are aware of the lack of department stores in the area so they rely on us for their higher end needs. She has observed that these women do not like to take very many risks and adjusts the way she merchandises based on
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that. The best selling item in the store in her opinion is dresses. There is a wide variety for many different occasions and styles and she thinks that the women rely on Anthropologie to have their special occasion dresses. ! Megans main mentor growing up was always her dad. She described him as a well-traveled and creative

and always aspired to be just like him. Her dads job was as a buyer at all different retail stores. She said he had bought everything under the sun at some point and she thought it was an interesting eld. This is what inspired her to pursue the fashion eld. Although she is not in furniture design at Anthropologie, she says she would one day like to return to it somehow. Owning her own business is denitely appealing to her, but so is becoming a buyer and doing more of the behind the scenes work to inuence stores. ! As you can tell from the rest of my information in this notebook, Megan was one of the main people I

worked with during my time at Anthropologie and I really enjoyed it. She is a unique character with major dreams and an unreal amount of drive to succeed. I admire her for a lot of reasons, but these are denitely the top two. I hope to keep in contact with her and possibly use her as a recommendation in the future.

LeAnn Morin ! The next woman that I interviewed is a co-worker from the ower shop that I work at, Town & Country

Floral. LeAnn is a Floral Designer for the shop and she also owns her own jewelry business. The main reason I was interested in interviewing LeAnn is because she has such a diverse and extensive background in retail. Over her career she has been a Floral Manager for three different places, a Merchandise Manager, a Visual Merchandiser and then Visual Merchandise Supervisor at Nebraska Furniture Mart, and the manager of an Antique store. ! Although LeAnn did not nish college, her diverse background gives her an extensive knowledge of retail

and different strategies that you can apply to impact sales. One of the biggest things she stresses with me at the ower shop is if something is selling well then keep doing it! A lot of stores will sell out of something and then just move on to the next thing instead of ordering more. In her opinion, this is a huge mistake. ! The responsibilities that LeAnn has had in her career could go on for pages, but one job that I was especially

interested in was her job at the Mart. LeAnn told me that while she was there she would have to make sure room groupings were properly displayed and told a story in a way that would enhance and drive sales. Some things that helped with this goal were accents like lamps, rugs, and pillows. She has told me stories about having to set up rooms at the Mart under a time limit and how big and stressful of a task it is. A rug alone can take three people to carry it, let alone a couch or dresser. ! When LeAnn was a Merchandise Manager she was in charge of buying for a store called Sullivans. She

would travel to show rooms all over the United States and a few times over seas to search out worthwhile merchandise to send back to her store. After the merchandise would come in she would then have to set up shows with all of it. There were about four or ve shows a year and since Sullivans is a supplier of articial owers, Christmas trees, and gifts this would include setting up multiple Christmas trees with different themes. Making sure all the merchandise was shopable and could be seen was the hardest part of this she said. ! Currently in LeAnns personal jewelry business, called OuLaLaDesigns she still puts on shows and does

home parties for her merchandise, but you can imagine how different setting up jewelry is compared to Christmas trees. Some other things that LeAnn does for OuLaLaDesigns includes ordering beads and supplies, cleaning jewelry, making jewelry, and ordering jewelry. Even though LeAnn does focus on jewelry, she says that hat sales have really
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treated her well as of late. The main advertising that LeAnn uses for her business are word of mouth, Facebook, Twitter, and she uses Etsy to sell. She believes that her customers are generally a higher income person since she deals a lot with sterling and semi-precious stones. She does, however, have a cheaper costume line that is more affordable. ! The main qualities that LeAnn thinks are most valuable to someone wanting to be successful in a creative

type career are an education, good eye, an understanding of gross margin, respect, strong work ethic, and my favorite, tenacity. She stressed the importance of nishing school and obtaining a degree a great deal. One unique thing that most people wouldnt think of that has helped her creative career is visiting museums. As a girl LeAnns parents took her to countless museums and she built a knowledge of the history of furniture and clothing. She strongly believes that an understanding of the history assists you in predicting the future, just like you history teacher always told you. ! LeAnn credits her mom for inspiring her not necessarily with her creativity, but more with her impeccable

work ethic. She respected people no matter what and taught LeAnn her values. Values that LeAnn will not compromise no matter what the business situation is. Because of this foundation it makes sense that she is also inspired by a famous quote by Eleanor Roosevelt; No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. In the end, LeAnn is an outstanding mother, designer, and woman and I always enjoy listening to her stories about life.

Illyssa Brickman ! Illyssa Brickman is the Apparel Supervisor at Anthropologies Omaha store. When Megan took over

Cherrys job, however, she stepped into the Apparel Department Manager position. This is the position she hopes to make hers permanently in the future followed by the Visual Merchandiser position. Illyssa has been with Anthropologie for a total of two and a half years, but up until a year and a half ago she was located at the Beverly Hills store. I thought that Illyssa would give a unique perspective since she has worked for more than one Anthropologies and that is why I chose to interview her. ! Before Illyssa worked for Anthropologie, she graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchan-

dising in Los Angeles with a Visual Communications degree. This degree is very broad and basically includes styling and merchandising. During her time at FIDM she did two internships. The rst was with Who What Wear and her main title was stylists assistant. The stylists there would bring her along to events or photo shoots for an extra hand. She said this experience was very informative and made her decide that she did not want to be soley a stylist. Illyssas second internship was with A.B.S. by Allen Schwartz. This company produces red carpet garment replicas or affordable luxury. This internship gave her the opportunity to style two advertisement campaigns. ! Some qualities that Illyssa believes are crucial for a job like hers are positivity, an open mind and approach-

ability. Without positivity she thinks that a person would begin to hate their job and that the eld in general isnt right for them. ! The Apparel Supervisor position, like the Visual Merchandiser, is a 40 hour a week full-time job. The nature

of the position is half merchandising, but also half about managing customers and employees. Illyssa runs morning meetings and is generally one of the managers that assumes leadership on the oor when higher up managers arent present. Illyssa is naturally a shy person and she explained to me that being offered this position has really opened her up to be more outgoing. The overall energy that comes from employees and customers in Anthropologie stores affected her in more ways than just professionally. This is one of the many reasons she loves it.

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The main differences that Illyssa can see in the clientele from Beverly Hills and Omaha is they are way more

likely to take risks down there. She denitely sees the conservative side of Omaha just like Megan. Also, she says that clients age in California ranges much more than here. She said she would see young 20 something women as well as 60 plus year old women in the same day there, whereas here they are all around the same range with no extremities. ! The best selling product that Illyssa has seen in both Anthropologie locations is the seamless camisole

pieces. She believes that since they are high quality, reversible, and come in many colors that they will keep women coming back forever. ! Illyssas inspiration for her everyday personal styling comes from a few different blogs; Cupcakes & Cash-

mere, Kendi Everyday, and the daybook blog. All three of these are worth checking out if you have a minute. Illyssa thinks that blogs are not only great for advertisement for Anthropologie, but they are great to keep your creative mind open. Along with the blogs, she is very inspired by her aunt. This woman owns two stores with her husband and her work ethic and love of fashion is what gets to Illyssa most. FIDM also served as a huge creatively stimulating environment for her. Since it is a fashion school there were people everywhere that shared her same interests and she could discuss ideas and network in a noncompetitive way. Illyssas interview got me thinking about my options after Northwest and expanded my mind to what my options really are. ! Danielle Bendon ! As Im sure you already know, Danielle was offered an internship opportunity at the headquarters of Ann

Taylor Loft in New York City. I thought it would be interesting to interview Danielle just to see what a higher prole internship was like. ! While Danielle was in NYC she worked 40 hours a week for ten weeks. She reported to the jewelry buyer for

the store and was mainly in charge of managing the jewelry samples. She was instructed to keep them organized and if they were lent to a different department she had to keep track of who had them and make sure they were returned. Along with this responsibility she had several special projects for managers of the whole merchandise department, she organized a team building event, and she also took care of her supervisors random personal needs. Danielle was a very busy lady in the city that never sleeps! ! Danielle believes that the average customer at Loft is someone 30-50 with a very active lifestyle. They need a

wardrobe that will take them from work to night seamlessly since they wear many different hats. Her clothes need to be versatile and suitable for a number of different situations. Because of this the categories that sell the most are dresses and knits. The most successful way that Loft advertises is through email according to Danielle. She observed that from one email announcing a sale a ton of ladies will automatically plan a trip to the store into their day. They do not currently have a catalog. ! Qualities that Danielle has found to be useful in the eld are a positive attitude, open mind, exibility, and

willingness to take anything on. One of the compliments that she received on her evaluation was that she was very good at taking a task and completing it no matter what. She believes this is huge, because sometimes people are going to be too busy to teach you how to do a task and you will have to just adapt and do your best. On the ip side, she thinks that feedback like this is how employees morale is boosted. So by receiving this information she was motivated to keep up the good work. She thinks this is the most effective way to keep morale high among employees.

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Out of this internship Danielle didnt directly receive a job since she hasnt graduated yet, but the company

told her to contact them in January when she starts looking for jobs and they will let her know of any openings that they have for her. This denitely motivates me to land an internship that I am completely in love with closer to my senior year, so maybe I can receive a job that would help put me through graduate school.

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Weekly Internship Reports

Emma Hulseys Anthropologie Internship Report: Week of May 21st Tuesday: 8AM-4PM Wednesday: 8AM-4PM Thursday: 8AM-1:30PM Friday: 8AM-1:30PM Total: 27 hours Some notes: Art/Display Supervisor: Abby Visual/Apparel Supervisor: Cherry There are three other interns (1) (2) (3) Iowa State - Graphic Design University of Nebraska - Interior Design Kansas State - Interior Design & Architecture

I loved my rst week My forms are in the mail A semi-annual sale is going on ! First of all I would just like to tell you that I am in love with Anthropologie and the employees. Everyone

was so warm and welcoming to me this week! On my rst day at the morning meeting the drilled me with questions about my favorite Disney princess, where I would like to travel to, and if I am a dog or cat person. They all wanted to get to know me and it was great! ! Also on Tuesday I had my initial meeting with my two supervisors, Cherry and Abby, and we gured out all of our paperwork. After this I worked with the two other interns in the art room to gure out a plan for a new cashwrap display. They had already brainstormed a few ideas, but we decided to go with an abstract straw design. The cashwrap already has a large canvas behind it, so we are forming the straws around and above it. Once we drew out our design and got it all approved by Abby we began peeling straws. All the straws are milk carton size and wrapped in paper, so this part takes a long time. ! Wednesday I worked with Cherry on the oor. Before the store opened she gave me a full tour and taught me how to board fold as well as what all the merchandising standards of Anthropologie are (tag tucking, hangars, etc.). Then for the rest of the day she had me check the standards of all the racks and restock pieces that did not have all the right sizes. From this day I learned the layout of the store and how to manage the oor properly in order to keep it up to the high standards that Anthropologie holds. One thing I liked in particular was interacting with customers as they came in and out of the store. I even got to help a few! It was fun and I quite like being on the oor. ! On Thursday I was back in the art room working with straws. We were hoping to be able to spray paint them this day, but it rained. So we kept peeling and forming them in hopes that Friday we would have better luck. This got pretty tedious and boring, but the other interns and I chatted and listened to Pandora to keep the day rolling. By 1:30 my hands were hurting though.
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The last day of the week I got to work on the oor again. Cherry and another visual manager, Megan, taught

me how to design and dress forms. They picked out all the outts for about 15 mannequins around the store and I spent all day changing, steaming, and taking the censors off of them. At Anthropologie they dont over accessorize every mannequin like you would see at a Forever 21. They believe that by not over accessorizing it boosts the level of sophistication that much more. The amount of people in the store this day was a lot more than earlier in the week and this is probably due to the upcoming holiday as well as the weekend almost being here. Although, I was not thanking goodness it was Friday because I wanted to keep working! Dressing mannequins was a challenge until I got it all gured out, but I enjoyed seeing what the two visual managers chose to put together for them. Some of the outts were unexpected and somehow worked. I think I will expand my vision for pairing things from observing this.

Emma Hulseys Anthropologie Internship Report: Week of May 28th Tuesday: 8:45AM-1PM Wednesday: 8AM-1PM Thursday: 8AM-1:45PM Friday: 8AM-1PM Total: 21.5 hours Some notes: Last week I screwed up my months and put June 21st instead of May. Sorry for any confusion! The Loop is the website that connects all Anthropologie stores to each other. Employees everywhere share inspiration on here as well as pictures of their stores displays Our sale has ended ! This week was a very busy one! On Tuesday we did more prepping of the straw display. One of the other

interns and I started to put the straws together and build the display. We had to try a few different techniques and hold them up where they would be installed to see what looked best. It was really a trial and error process. There was no wrong or right way to do it. The other two interns spray painted straws while we were doing this. ! On Wednesday I worked in merchandising and got to help one of the managers, Alyssa, redo the set up of our Eva and Elliot room. All the rooms stories will be in my internship notebook, but basically this room is of sisters that live in New York City. One is a tomboy and the other is very girly, so Alyssa chose to have a lot of navy pieces and boyfriend jeans as well as bright, summery dresses and colored/patterned jeans. It was really interesting to watch her place things and then step back and look at the room as a whole in order to see if it worked. I found out that Alyssa graduated from FIDM in Los Angeles which I thought was unexpected and interesting. I also got to help a few customers get set up with dressing rooms this day. ! Thursday was my favorite day this week because I was pretty independent all day. Right away in the morning Cherry gave me a list of things to get done and then she set me loose. The rst task was to ll a three tier display of books and ofce doodads that she had laid out in the Eva and Elliot room. She took time to really explain to me why she put certain items in the places that she did and showed me the pattern of the display. Even these items followed the story of the room. It included books about Paris and New York City, travel notebooks, and bag tags. The

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next task on my list was to reorganize the accessory shop. I had so much fun with this because I got to choose where to put everything on my own. All the employees loved how I organized it and even Cherry told me it made her want to shop, so that made me feel great! This day I got to help a few more customers with jewelry and tting rooms. Also, since I helped place everything in Eva and Elliot the day before some of the employees even asked me for help when nding pieces. ! Today I worked in the art room with Abby (all the other interns were off) on our upcoming display. The display has certain guidelines from Home Ofce that we have to go by. Basically it has to be a realistic representation of a type of ower and we have to use paper and natural dyes. Abby let all of the interns see some of the displays that had been created from these guidelines on The Loop earlier in the week and they were incredible! The ower that she chose to go with is the coneower and she is currently testing dyes from blueberries and beets. So cool! This display is designed pretty much entirely by Abby and the interns are going to help with bringing it to life and installing, so started cutting out petals. I did that until about eleven and then I watered all of the plants in the store and helped on the oor a little bit before calling it a week.

Emma Hulseys Anthropologie Internship Report: Week of June 4th Tuesday: 8AM-3PM Wednesday: 8AM-1:30PM Thursday: 8AM-1PM Friday: Personal day Total: 17.5 Some notes: I took a personal day on Friday because my work needed me to come help out I will make up the hours next week Inventory is coming up I resubmitted my rst two journals to the Dropbox in PDF form so you should be able to see them now ! On Tuesday this week I worked in the art room and we nished cutting out all of the big and little petals for

the new display. Then we started to tape wire to the inside of one of the petals. The wire is supposed to make it so we can shape the petals in the drooping affect like the coneower. This work was very tedious and boring, but Abby, the other interns, and I all had good conversations while we were working. Also this day I did an interview of Megan who is basically head of the apparel side of our Omaha Antropologie. This will all be included in my notebook. I stayed later this day since I didnt have to work at the owershop in the afternoon. ! Wednesday morning I was supposed to work on the oor, but Megan (Cherry was gone) wasnt prepared yet so I helped start to glue both sides of the petals together. This process was a LOT harder than it sounds. We used spray adhesive and had to line both sides of the petals up so they match as best as possible. I was not patient enough for this at rst, but I got ahold of it after a while. At around nine oclock Megan had some tasks lined up for me. I basically followed her around and straightened or moved items that were going into our sale room. Since inventory

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is coming up we have had a huge amount of our merchandise on sale to try and move it all out. Im still not sure if I will have to participate in inventory. ! My last day this week I was on the oor again. This time I was with Heather who is the head of the home portion of our store. She had me restock cups, dishes, towels, candles, aprons, etc for most of the day. This process is pretty slow since home merchandise is stored in the way back of our stock room and you cant carry that much at once. I spent all day doing this while the other interns were spraying petals. Even though it is a long process, I really liked restocking. Something about nally getting the whole display full is really satisfying. Im sure if I had to do it all the time I would get tired of it, but it wasnt bad on Thursday. Heather is really energetic and entertaining to work with which Im sure helped keep me interested too. ! though! As I stated in my notes, I took Friday as one of my personal days because we had four weddings, a funeral, and a massive baby shower to do at the ower shop. I will make up the two and a half hours next week for sure

Emma Hulseys Anthropologie Internship Report: Week of June 11th Tuesday: 8AM-2:30PM Wednesday: 8AM-1PM Thursday: 8AM-2PM Friday: 8AM-1:30PM Total: 24 hours Some notes: Tuesday & Wednesday were inventory days, but I did not participate Thursday Ms. Goudge visited All pictures of prep work will be included in my notebook ! All day Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I spent the entire time in the art room preparing for the new,

naturalistic ower display. The other interns and I worked on wiring, dying, and xing up all the petals and leaves so they would look as good as possible. Next week is Abbys last week which means that this is her last display and she wants to go out with a bang. This means she is very particular about the way we are doing things. More than a few times she would correct us to make sure we were making everything look perfect. This week we also prepared the stems for the owers. These are made out of pipes with dyed paper mache coating the entire thing. I am more than ready for this display to be done with because I am sick of petals and leaves. Installation is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday though, so not much longer! ! Friday I nally got to work on the oor since inventory was over and done with. Cherry took a personal day, so I worked with Megan. Megan is very professional and works hard to make sure the store is in tip-top shape all the time. This day I got to help set out our promotion tanks and tees and then assisted her in changing all the mannequins. Its interesting to see the difference in the outts Megan picks compared to Cherry. I dont exactly agree with some of Megans picks, but I denitely learned from her. She even let me give some input on a few of them, al-

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though ultimately she had the nal say. I still really prefer to be on the oor compared to in the back. This week was kind of uneventful for me since everyone was up to their eyeballs in inventory work.

Emma Hulseys Anthropologie Internship Report: Week of June 18th Tuesday: 8AM-1PM Wednesday: 8AM-2PM Thursday: personal day Friday: 8AM-3PM Total: 18 hours Some notes: Cherry had her baby this week, so Megan is now my supervisor Abbys last day was Friday and they have not hired a new Display Coordinator I have been at a family reunion with no internet connection all weekend, so that is why I couldnt submit this until today ! On Monday when I wasnt there the interns and Abby started installation on the coneower windows, so on

Tuesday when I got there I got to help nish that up. We placed all of the owers stems and screwed them into the oor and then we had attach the tops and shape the petals to look right. After that we had to cover the bottom metal part and add the leaves. While we were doing this we got tons of people stopping by inside and outside the store to admire the display. That was really cool to see that people actually appreciate it all. One woman stood outside the store watching us like it was the zoo for probably ten minutes! After this day the whole display was done. Finally. If I never have to cut another petal or leaf again I will be perfectly happy. But the nished product was very cool I must say. ! Since the display is done and Abbys last day is Friday I got to spend the rest of the week with Megan on the oor. Which I was super excited about! On Wednesday we changed all the mannequins and started rearranging the Niko room. With Megan as my supervisor it kind of feels like I am her assistant or third arm. She does things like rearrange or pick an outt out and then has me nish them while she moves on to the next thing. I worked with restocking the accessory shop this day too. I rearranged the jewelry again a little bit because it got kind of tragic looking since last time. Also I rearranged all of the accessories and shoes on the wall with Megans guidance. Its awesome to watch customers ock to the section that youve just made look nice. ! Thursday I had a ton of homework for my online class that I had to get done and I had to work, so Megan let me take my second personal day. She also had a long meeting with her boss about who to hire as the new display coordinator and wouldnt have been able to work with me very much, so it worked out perfectly. ! Friday was probably one of the best days yet! I wore a dress that I bought from the store and during the 6 hours that I was there probably 15 people tried the dress on and a few bought it. It was great! I got to be on the oor helping people a lot this day because they were short staffed and the main manager was very thankful and appreciative of it. That made me feel pretty awesome. We nished rearranging Niko this day and I restocked everything in the room for the weekend. This was Abbys last day, so we had fruit tart at morning meeting and all the regular employ-

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ees shared their favorite memories. Abby was a really awesome DC and I think I got lucky to get to work for her for a little bit at least. Next week is my last week and I am sort of sad that its coming to an end.

Emma Hulseys Anthropologie Internship Report: Week of June 25th Tuesday: 8AM-2PM Wednesday: 8AM-1:30PM Thursday: 8AM-1:30PM Friday: 8AM-2PM Total: 23 hours Some notes: This was my nal week of interning We started looking at the Fall concepts ! On Monday night Megan called me to tell me that all day Tuesday we would be having an inspiration day

for the fall concepts, so I should bring my laptop and whatever else might make me and the rest of the girls inspired. Most of the day Tuesday we were on Pinterest looking up different aspects of the concepts we had received. This was interesting because I didnt know that they spent time on this kind of thing. Basically we were helping Megan prepare for a conference call later in the week about her take on the concepts. Since she was in charge of display and all of the merchandising she was very overwhelmed and thankful that we were helping so much. This was the only day I participated, but the rest of the interns went out in Omaha later in the week to take pictures and get inspired. ! Wednesday Megan and another manager, Illysa, were remerchandising Eva and Elliot with some of our new merchandise. I got to put my opinion in on a few mannequins and helped move everything around. Also I worked a lot with jewelry again. Megan has pretty much trusted me with ownership of the accessory shop at this point, which is awesome. I reorganized the shoes, belts, and sunglasses as well. ! Thursday Megan kind of told me that if I needed to add anything else to my portfolio before my internship was over that I shouldnt be afraid to ask, so I began thinking what else would be nice to include. This day I helped restock and rearrange home stuff mostly. I helped a lot on the oor and I loved every minute of it. One woman came in and asked me for help and since everyone else was busy I just took the initiative to help her. She ended up buying the shirt I suggested for her! That felt really good. Megan didnt have a lot of specic tasks for me, so I just did the things I thought needed to be done. I watered and groomed the plants for a good chunk of the day since I work at a ower shop and know how to do it better than most of the ladies. ! On my very last day at Anthropologie I started out restocking for the weekend, like usual. Then I asked if I could redo the mannequins at the front of the store. Megan said yes and then asked me to do the one facing the parking lot as well! I had so much fun doing this even though it was a little challenging. I asked for help a little bit, but I ended up loving the nal product! It will be included in my notebook of course. While I was doing my mannequins I helped a lot on the oor again. Then at the end of the day I had my evaluation meeting with Megan. I was a little nervous for this. I dont know why though, because it couldnt have gone any better! She is sending you the evalua-

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tion, so Im sure youll see why eventually. I dont think that they just offer interns jobs, but I did end up asking if they had any part time positions. Megan told me that she knew of someone putting in their two weeks soon and that she would talk to the woman in charge of hiring for me. So exciting! I would love to keep working there for the rest of the summer. ! July! Overall I had a great experience at Anthropologie and with my internship in general. I still have a few interviews left, but I know who I want to interview and then my notebook will be on its way to you! Happy almost 4th of

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Final Report
Anthropologie Internship Summer 2012 ! During my six weeks as an unpaid intern at Anthropologie I can say that I learned just as much as I would

have if I would have been sitting in a classroom for a semester. There were three aspects that stood out to me to be the most benecial. The rst is the hands on experience I had the opportunity to partake in. After that I most enjoyed the guidance by trained professionals and the fact that the structure and guidelines of the internship program allowed me to make the most of my short time. ! Now that everything about my internship is said and done and I have a moment to look back at the experi-

ence I can really appreciate how valuable it has been to me. My expectations going into the internship were nonexistent. I had no idea what I would get to do and observe or even if I would get much out of it. Im glad I went in with no expectations, because this would have blown any that I had away. I got hands on experience in not only the display creation process, but also the merchandising process. I feel like this is a rare opportunity, especially for someone my age! My eyes were opened to even more opportunities than I had going into college. I learned that I am already talented and can only become more so the more work I put into it. ! The guidance I received during my internship was probably the equivalent of four college professors. Except

they all only had to teach me what they knew, so I learned since they had their attention trained on me they made sure that I learned what I needed to. I think that the people around me at Anthropologie were inspired by my curiosity a little bit. I would ask questions to provoke conversation on their experiences and this is how I learn best. The stories that everyone told me of their careers will stick with me and I will use is as guidance forever. Megan was probably the most inuential person to my experience. She came into work everyday ready to move. Everything she did was full-hearted and she could do things so fast that even her peers had a hard time keeping up. As her right had woman for most of the time, I got to pick her brain on why she would do things the way she did and this really educated me. ! I think that the program that Northwest has set up is special. None of the other interns had to do any of the

extra things that we are required to do and I wasnt even mad about it. I think that by having to interview people and really ask the stimulating questions that I learned more from my experience. The other girls would just basically come in and do the time and then go home with a little new knowledge on how to craft. I am thankful that I was forced to put in so much extra time and work, because it makes the experience worthwhile. ! Even though I wasnt paid for my time, I feel like I received something in return with all of the experiences

and knowledge that I had access to. I got to start building a portfolio and was exposed to things that most freshman dont even know exist. I believe that my personal performance at Anthropologie was a good one. I worked as hard as I could day in and day out and produced some great things. They also hired me as a Sales Associate when my internship was up which must mean that they liked me a little bit at least! Working with these ladies made me grow as an individual and gure out myself a little bit more and I am so thankful that I got this opportunity.

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Analysis of Internship Experience

What experiences were least valuable? There was not one thing during my time at Anthropologie that I can name that I didnt learn from or gain some sort of useful knowledge from. I felt like everything, no matter how boring or repetitious, helped me learn some sort of concept or expanded my understanding of the eld. What experiences were most valuable? I felt that all of the times that I was on the oor interacting with Megan (visual merchandiser) were the most valuable to me. She taught me a lot of little things that I dont think I would have learned from a class. What experiences do you wish that you would have had, that you did not? Megan was really great about asking me during my last week if there was anything that I wanted/needed to do in particular before I nished my internship, so I pretty much got to experience everything I had hoped. The only other thing I could think of would be to re-merchandise a whole room by myself. That is a huge task though that I dont think they would have liked to give to an intern. In what way did your store supervisor contribute to making your store experience worthwhile? Teri is the store supervisor at Anthropologie. She wasnt one of my personal supervisors, but she did teach me a few things. I especially learned from watching her ways of motivating all of the employees. This is one of her strong points I believe and she does it extremely well. Teri was also extremely appreciative of everything I was doing. It was great for me to have this recognition since it is an unpaid internship. I also didnt mind that she hired me after my six weeks were up :). In what way did your store employees contribute to making your store experience worthwhile? The employees, as I mentioned before, were really great at getting to know me for who I was and not just overlooking me because I was an intern. They would help me whenever I was unsure of something and, like Teri, they would show appreciation for what I did (especially with the accessory shop). Also, when I would have an exceptionally cute outt on they would compliment me. This was awesome for me to know since they are all older and know more than I do about the fashion world. In what way did your store customers contribute to making your store experience worthwhile? I had one woman in particular that told me she trusted my opinion because she could tell I was stylish. This was a HUGE compliment for me and I think it shows the character of some of the women that shop at Anthropologie. Of course, with every higher end store comes some of those women that are a little full of themselves. I think even those women taught me something, because you really have to tailor your answers to their questions and be efcient so you dont lose them as a customer for the company. Was your place of employment satisfactory? Give reasons for your answer. Yes, yes, and YES! Even though it is an unpaid internship I would recommend it to anyone without past internship experience. The store as a whole is wonderful and there are so many opportunities for learning everyday! As long as you are willing to put in the hours and effort, Anthropologie is more than satisfactory for an internship.
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THE END!

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