Amber Simons

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Amber Simons simon2al_at_cmich.edu (810)
278-2378 1815 Edgewood Dr. Apt. 205 Mt.
Pleasant, MI 48858 Major Apparel
Merchandising Design Minor Retailing GPA
3.6
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Table of Contents

• Philosophy Statement Career Goals
• Cover Letter
• Resume
• Skill Set
• Academic Work Experience
• Visual Merchandising
• Apparel Presentation Technology
• Internship Nordstrom
• Merchandising Management
• Apparel Design Analysis
• Trend Forecasting
• Textiles
• Fashion Buying
• Computer Aided Design Apparel
• Multi-channel Fashion Retailing
• Letters of Recommendation
• Awards Honors
• References

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AMBER SIMONS [phone] ambersimons40_at_hotmail
.com October 20, 2008 Dear Human Resource
Department I am applying for an entry level
visual retailing position with your company. The
position at your company fits well with my
experience and education. I will be graduating
from Central Michigan University in December 2008
with a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Apparel
Merchandising and Design and Retailing. In
preparation for an entry level visual
merchandising position, I have worked with Macys
and T.J. Maxx stores part-time, while continuing
my education in the apparel merchandising and
retailing fields at Central Michigan University.
I have also completed an internship during summer
2008 for Nordstrom. These experiences have
developed my skills in displaying merchandise on
the sales floor creatively and in a timely
manner, working well with other sales associates
and other coworkers, becoming knowledgeable with
many different retail and merchandising terms and
products, and satisfying customers needs through
aesthetic displays. At Central Michigan
University the classes gave me insight into real
merchandising and retail experiences by visually
displaying merchandise in windows and interiors,
developing a retail floor set plan-o-gram through
CAD, trend forecasting items for future seasons,
creating catalogs, analyzing markets for further
development, and gaining greater knowledge of
industry terms and procedures. With my
background in merchandising and retailing, I
believe I would be an excellent asset to your
company in every way. My great teamwork and
communication skills give me an advantage in the
retailing industry because working with others is
a key to success. I am eager to learn the
business of fashion, hands-on, through your
fashion forward company. After you have had the
opportunity to review the attached resume, please
contact me at simon2al_at_cmich.edu or
[phone]. I will appreciate an opportunity
to discuss my qualifications with you any day of
the week. I will contact you next week to see if
a meeting can be arranged. I look forward to
talking with you soon. Sincerely
yours, Amber Simons Enclosure
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Amber Simons [phone] ambersimons40_at_hotmail.
com

• OBJECTIVE To obtain an entry level position with
  a well know fashion retailer.
• EDUCATION Central Michigan University, Mount
  Pleasant, Michigan
• Bachelor of Applied Arts, December 2008
  (expected)
• Major Apparel Merchandising and Design
• Merchandising Concentration Minor Retailing
• GPA 3.6 (4.0)
• Honors
• Deans List 2005-2008
• Kappa Omicron Nu Member 2007-2008
• The National Scholars Honor Society Member
  2007-2008
• Golden Key International Honor Society Member
  2007-2008
• INTERNSHIPEXPERIENCE Nordstrom, Tampa, Florida
  Troy, Michigan
• Intern, May 19-August 8, 2008
• Demonstrated excellent communication in
  understanding a customers needs.
• Visually displayed merchandise in a pleasing
  manner throughout the sales floor.
• Gained knowledge of a high end well known fashion
  retailers business strategies.
• WORK

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• WORK Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Harrison
  Township, EXPERIENCE Michigan
• CONTINUED Lifeguard, June 2003-August 2007
  (seasonal)
• Successfully collaborated with other lifeguards.
• Managed and calculated the daily funds.
• Addressed excellent communication skills with the
  patrons and other lifeguards.
• Macys, Fort Gratiot, Michigan
• Sales Associate, September 2005-January 2007
• (2006 Holiday season)
• Organized and displayed new shoes on the tables
  and shelves.
• Achieved Selling Star of the Month Award for
  November.
• Developed knowledge of fashion trends and
  retailing to sell Macys merchandise.
• RELEVANT
• COURSES Visual Merchandising Apparel
  Presentation Tech.
• Merchandising Mgt. Retail
  Merchandising Mgt. Trend Forecasting
  Multi-Channel Fashion Retail Fashion
  Buying CAD Apparel
• Business Communications Marketing
  Communications
• COMPUTER
• SKILLS Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Adobe Photoshop Illustrator
• Visual Retailing

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Amber Simons

• Philosophy Statements
• I believe
• Customer satisfaction is the solution to a
  successful retail organization.
• Communication is the key to any relationship.
• A well planned store display and layout develop
  the store image.
• One should always use the principles and elements
  of design to create a visual display.

• Career Goals
• In two years I plan to
• To obtain a leadership position within a well
  known fashion retailer.
• To gain hands-on knowledge about the fashion
  industry.
• To develop lasting relationships with coworkers
  and management throughout the company.

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Skill Sets

• Merchandising
• Understand and can apply the principles and
  elements of design.
• Merchandise flow skills.
• The ability to aesthetically develop visual
  displays.
• Can forecast trends and create trend boards.
• Internship
• Displayed accessories merchandise in the Brass
  Plum department.
• Understood and followed the visual merchandising
  guidelines for my department.
• Motivated other employees about sales goals and
  responsibilities.
• Communication Teamwork
• Ability to work one on one with customers to
  develop their needs and wants.
• The ability to give presentations in front of
  groups.
• Works well in a team inspired environment.
• Personal Management

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Visual Merchandising

• Used the elements and principles of design to
  develop excellent selling windows.
• Created a large window display for a retailer of
  our choice.
• The retailer used was T.J. Maxx and the theme was
  based on exploring the wild side while searching
  through the many new fashions everyday at T.J.
  Maxx.
• Designed a freelance interior store display for
  a retailer of your choice. Our group chose Emmas
  Basement Boutique in downtown Mt. Pleasant,
  Michigan.
• The theme used was chic styles for the everyday
  girly needs.

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Here we used animal prints National
Geographic Magazines to bring out the wild theme.
Lighting was used to make certain features of
the display stick out.
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Our freelance display was done at Emmas Basement
Boutique. The theme Was based on The Bejio purses
and everything a girl needs to have a good
time.
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Apparel Presentation Technology

• Develop a plan-o-gram using Photoshop
  Illustrator.
• Import pictures of fixtures, apparel, and
  accessories.
• Create a wall display, window display, floor
  plan, and merchandise the fixtures.
• Give written direction to the employees
  throughout the plan-o-gram.

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The curtains should be placed 1 ft. apart from
one another so customers can still see into the
store.
The snow flakes trailing down the window will be
sent to stores by the 1st of November to give
associates enough time to make window display.
The snowflakes will be hung from the ceiling by
fishing wire, so they appear to be falling down
the display.
The window is open into the store, but to create
the effect of being closed off, black see-through
curtain will be provided to give the air of
mystery.
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Here is the wall display I created for my
roaring 20s inspired boutique. The display is
located in the dress apparel area of the
boutique. I used accessories to make the wall
appear more interesting.
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Internship Nordstrom

• Became familiar with visual guidelines given to
  each department for every month.
• Displayed merchandise on the sales floor each
  morning and organized throughout the day.
• My responsibility was the visual displays of the
  accessories area on the Brass Plum (Juniors
  Department) floor.

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This is a part of the accessories are Which I was
responsible for merchandising Throughout my
internship.
Here are display tables containing wallets,
earrings, bangles, and hats.
Sunglasses were displayed in the front of the
department on a long wooden table.
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Necklaces were hung from display fixtures on
glass tables. earrings were placed in
colored plastic boxes and easily messed up.
Sunglasses were also Placed on a small round
Glass top table right next to The wooden
display table.
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Merchandising Management

• Studied the retail industry in an on-site manner.
• Critiqued retail businesses close-up and gave our
  insight on ways to change visuals, prices, store
  layouts, or store image.
• Here is an exert from the window display critique
  paper.

Name of the Store Trillium Fine Clothing for
Women Address of the Store 123 East Broadway
Street, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48858 Date of the
Observation Friday, March 14th Time 130
p.m.

The theme of the Trillium window display is pink
spring time and femininity. One side of the
display window targets young women with
strapless, fun, flirty dresses and the other
targets older women with long skirts, sweaters to
cover up, and a more conservative look. For both
sides of the window even though separated the
color scheme is the same, pinks with some neutral
colors.
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Name of the Store Ace of Diamonds Address of
the Store 128 East Broadway Street, Mt.
Pleasant, MI 48858
Date of the
Observation Friday, March 14th Time 145
p.m.

The theme of the displays was clearance. Every
window is showing clearance merchandise, except
the last window which is displaying non-clearance
items with a bright red color for the background
instead of the black and white. The way the
lighting is used, the long poles directed you
vertically down to the small jewelry are very
effective. The blue lighting used for the watches
is unique and is intriguing for the shopper, that
they look no matter if they want the products or
not.


Name of the Store Basketree Address of the
Store 112 East Broadway Street, Mt. Pleasant,
MI 48858 Date of the Observation Friday, March
14th Time 115 p.m.



The theme for the right side of the display is
Easter and the theme for the left side is just
country living like the rest of the store. The
store windows display the home decoration very
well. They incorporated bunnies, fences, flowers,
and such in a pleasing manner for your home. On
the display windows there were signs not directed
towards the Basketree, but other aspects, such as
for rent sign and a sign for a piano concert in
Mt. Pleasant.


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Apparel Design Analysis

• Created a style pattern notebook with pictures to
  represent each style or pattern in apparel.
• Developed a notebook full of the elements and
  principles of design and used pictures and
  definitions to describe them.

Tweed
Lace
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Line
An elongated mark, connection between points, or
the effect made by the edge of an object where
there is no actual line on the object.
Light
An electromagnetic energy making things visible,
the radiant energy resulting from vibration of
electrons.
Balance
The feeling of evenly distributed weight,
equilibrium, steadiness, and stability.
Contrast
The feeling of distinct difference, the
opposition of thing for the purpose of showing
unlikeness.
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Scale
A consistent relationship of sizes to each other
and to the whole, regardless of the shape.
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Trend Forecasting

• Forecasted trends for Fall 2007 Fall/Winter
  season.
• Developed trend boards with magazine clippings
  and internet pictures to display the new seasons
  trends.
• Researched past trends and future trends to
  develop a theme, silhouette, accessories, or line
  for the F/W season.

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Here are trend boards based on accessories that
will be popular for the Fall season.
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Textiles

• Tested fashion fabric and lining with a group
  member for their recommended end uses.
• Developed a technical data sheet containing all
  the information from the many structural and
  performance attribute tests such as tear
  strength, wrinkle recovery, fabric hand, yarn
  size type, or fabric count.

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Fashion Buying

• Developed skills in retail math competency.
• Understand the buyers responsibility for
  profits.
• Can demonstrate an understanding of
  fashion/buyer/market/vendor relationship and the
  negotiation of sale.

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Computer-Aided Design Apparel

• Learned how to create patterns from different
  forms of inspiration.
• Created trend boards for inspiration.
• Designed a line of clothing for Limited Too in
  sleepwear, dress wear, playwear, and outwear.
• Developed skills in Adobe Illustrator
  Photoshop.

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These are items to display the theme for my
tween line and the colors I choose for the
apparel.
Here is an insert from the line I developed on
Illustrator. This is the playwear part of the
line, including descriptions of the items.
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These display the colors I chose displayed On
the apparel items and graphics I chose
and Created to be displayed on the apparel items.
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Multi-Channel Fashion Retailing

• Designed a promotional and institutional catalog
  for the retailer of our choice.
• The retailer we chose was Old Navy.

• The promotional catalog had many hero treatment
  items, based on the winter, holiday season with
  accessories displayed throughout for
  cross-selling.
• The institutional catalog theme was a scrapbook
  for the target markets college years.

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This is the cover of our institutional catalog
for Old Navy.
The pages in the catalog are based on the Theme
of a scrapbook of college memories, sort of like
a year book.
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Letters of Recommendation
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Awards Honors
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References Usha Chowdhary, Ph. D. Professor
of Human Environmental Studies 126 Wightman
Hall Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 (989)
774-2269 chowd1u_at_cmich.edu Seung-Eun Lee, Ph.
D. Associate Professor Apparel Merchandising and
Design Department of Human Environmental Studies,
WI106B Central Michigan University Mt. Pleasant,
MI 48859 [phone] lee6s_at_cmich.edu Sue
Gonzalez Merchandising Manager, T.J. Maxx Mount
Pleasant, MI 48858 [phone] Alena
Davis Brass Plum Department Manager, Nordstrom
Tampa, FL [phone] alena.davis_at_nordstrom.com
Jessica Show Lingerie Department Manager,
Nordstrom Troy, MI [phone] jessica.show_at_nor
dstrom.com