You can explain the tech pack you made EXPLAIN MARKET CONDITIONS FOR VEST JACKET (LIKE YOU DESCRIBED IN THE PAPER/ COMPETITION FANGDI-EXPLAIN MARKET CONDITIONS FOR VEST JACKET (LIKE DESCRIBED IN THE PAPER(attach file)/ COMPETITION TARGET MARKET REPORT VJ Thomas, Amber Bowden, Megan Sozio Fangdi Hou Product Development Professor Gutman February 28, 2016 As merchandisers for Macy's Private Label, Maison Jules, we-that is VJ Thomas, Amber Bowden, Megan Sozio and Fangdi Hou, present to you our Target Market Report. Maison Jules is a feminine, elegant and chic, Parisian street-style inspired women's clothing line sold exclusively at Macy's. The private label carries an assortment of classic yet modern pieces easily to mix and match and create personal style. Macy's is targeting the female, millennial population with their Maison Jules brand. The specific age range they are seeking is 19-30. She is a young and trendy woman who dreams of the Parisian lifestyle. She loves vintage inspired, classic pieces with a modern twist. Her favorite outfits are easy to wear, but look beautifully feminine and romantic. She loves floral patterns, lace and is not afraid of color. Being from the millennial generation, she is an avid social media user. She views Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook daily. She gains a lot of her wardrobe inspiration through these sites, as well as popular fashion bloggers. When the brand was first launched, Macy's partnered with the well-known French fashion blogger Garance Dore. She has a large social media following that helped get the Parisian inspired line off the ground. This started the brand off on the right foot with strong brand awareness. Since its launch, the styles have been kept easy to wear and appealing to a variety of buyers. They do this by offering most of their garments in a variety of colors and patterns. The Maison Jules brand is also priced competitively. With better quality than the fast fashion competitors, and only slightly higher pricing, the cute and stylish brand is hard to pass up. Our Product: For Spring Summer 2018, Maison Jules is releasing a new product called \"The Haley,\" a sleeveless Duster Vest, one of our favorites pieces in our new line titled, \"Southern Heart of Chic.\" The Haley vest, which is a loosely fitted below the knee duster made with lightweight crepe and lace detailing is the perfect spring outerwear that reflects Maison Jules easy-to-wear yet fashionable aesthetic. We believe this piece will be attractive to our customer, specifically in our target geographic focus this season-that is the Southeast/ South Central and Mid-Atlantic region of North America-where Macy's has a total of 249 stores. We believe that a southern style inspired collection with a Parisian twist will boost sales in the region where Macy's have the least amount of brick and mortar stores and will entice a rejuvenated enthusiasm towards our products in the region. Southeast USA fashion sense is not all about cowboy boots and hats. Southern women style also consists of lady-like pieces such as dresses, fitted jeans and bright colors- the epitome of the Maison Jules concept. This trendy vest adds something new to the collection, while still following the Parisian Chic style needed to be a cohesive addition to Maison Jules. Although Maison Jules offers a variety of tailored jackets and layering pieces, their line does not consist of any vests. With vests becoming increasingly popular, this is a missed opportunity for Macy's. This fashionable vest would be a perfect opportunity to fill this gap in their product line. A key in the Maison Jules band is versatility. The garments are all easy to pair with one another to create beautifully chic looks. The vest is a perfect piece to add to the assortment, because it can be easily paired with a variety of existing Maison Jules styles. For example, it can be worn on top of the \"Long-Sleeve Dress\" to add structure to the classic silhouette, or it could be paired with the \"Heathered LaceContrast Top\" and \"Frankie Skinny Pants\" to compliment a more casual outfit. Adding the vest to the assortment will give the customer another option to complete their outfit and give them another effortless way to style their Maison Jules wardrobe. Target Market: We are targeting the millennial female population ages 19-30 (Millennial are USA's largest and most diversified generation. Macys target consumers are millennial's between 16-34) with a focus on the South Eastern/South Central and Mid-Atlantic regions of North America. According to the Macy's_inc_store_listing excel sheet attached at the end of this report, the states represented in these regions along with the number of stores are as followed: Alabama-Southeast-2 stores Colorado-South Central- 14 stores Florida- Southeast-60 stores Georgia- Southeast-23 stores Illinois- South Central-25 stores Kansas- South Central-4 stores Kentucky- Southeast/North Central -7 stores North Carolina- Southeast-11 stores South Carolina- Southeast-2 stores Oklahoma- South Central- 4 stores Texas- South Central-52 stores Tennessee- Southeast-7 stores Utah- South Central-6 stores Louisiana- South Central- 5 stores Virginia-Mid-Atlantic- 27 stores (Macy's Inc. Store listings) Demographics: Our customer's ethnic background varies across all racial identities (Most millennial's are immigrants or children of immigrants.) However Caucasian, African American and Hispanic customers constitute our geographic region. Our customer is in the lower to upper middle class, single, or with an average household of 2.6 (the average household in USA.) (ArcGIS) She is a college educated, working professional performing in various fields' such as the private sector, entrepreneurial, business and start-ups and/or non-profits. As a carrier of a bachelor's degree, she makes up to 50,000-60,000 a year. (A survey of 1,500 Millennial's resulted in shopping preferences at JCPenney, Macys, Forever 21, Nike, Under Armour, and Zara.) Millennial's also have a $200 billion annual buying power. (Refinery 29) Psychographics: Lifestyle: Our customers in the southern USA geographic region are conservative, relaxed, have strong family values and close neighborhood ties through churches and community centers. Our southern customers are also slower paced than those who live in the northern region of USA. Our customers display \"Southern Hospitality\" from their kind smiles and respectful sayings, \"Yes, ma'am\" down to sharing the names of their favorite brands to their friends and families. Millennial's in general are more open-minded, more tolerant of change than their parents. Our customer's care about the environment and are more in tune with what is happening in the world. They love music (country, rock and pop), are on social media more then they sit in front of the TV and enjoy nights on the town. Millennial's are reported not influenced by advertisements although on social media often, purchasing isn't based solely on companies marketing efforts. However, before purchases are made, our customers tend to investigate a bit further on the brand and reviews of the product. When they do find a brand that they love, they are usually quite loyal. (Forbs) This is why it is so important for Maison Jules to capture our customers attention initially because it is most likely that they will come back to shop with us again if they are satisfied with our product. Style: We target women in different fields that desire a high end and flirty look for a great price. She likes to mix and match as well as accessorize. Prints, strips, lace, and pops of color are her weakness. Since she spends a lot of time meeting clients out of the office, she needs comfortable yet fashionable looks. Our customer loves shopping at department stores, such as Macys and Belk. Having a classic vest like the \"Haley\" is a perfect addition to her wardrobe. She can throw it over a flirty dress, a blouse and trousers, and even over blue jeans. Pair our Hailey with a wide brim or cowgirl hat and a trendy printed silk scarf around your neck and you have yourself a southern Parisian chic look. Market Segmentation: Lets take a peek into the life of Willow Rinehart Twenty six year old Willow Rinehart is a southern belle who resides in a 1,125 square feet home in Dallas-Fort Worth Texas. (Dallas is the third largest city in Texas and ranks #1 metropolitan areas in the Southern U.S.) (New World Encyclopedia) Her husband of one and a half years, Jeffrey Micah Rinehart, who she met at a country-rock concert in Nashville three years ago, lives with her and their five-month old son Riley along with their brown-eyed aussie puppy named Hart. Willow received her bachelor's degree in journalism/communications at the University of Texas at Austin and Jeff studied law at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville. Willow and Jeff truly value the time that they share together as a family whether its spending weekends in the city visiting the many museums that Dallas has to offer or just enjoying the great outdoors parks. Baby Riley especially loves the Dallas Aquarium. The young couple has a median household income of 120,000. The two are working on paying the mortgage for their homes and are still paying back college debt. Willow and Jeff are fortunate to rest in the upper middle social class, which dictates how much they are able and willing to spend on the type of lifestyle that they want. While they are not together, Willow spends her mornings at work. She is highly tech savvy spending up to 35 hours online a week for work and additional hours on social media and online shopping. When she isn't behind the computer at work, Willow tends to have meetings out of the office usually in small cafes, in her clients place of business and even out in Dallas's many public spaces. Since she meets with a variety of clients, Willow tries to keep her look clean, yet stylish. She updates her look monthly, shopping often in department stores such as Macys and Belk. She also likes to shop at Ann Taylor and Zara and occasionally splurge at Nordstrom's. When she isn't with her family or at work, Willow likes to spend her time at the mall, gym, and/or traveling. Some of her favorite travel destinations are Paris and Barcelona. Market Conditions The fashion industry is heavily influenced by the economy. As trends include more detail, intricate designs and luxurious fabrication, it shows that consumers are ready and willing to spend money. Some of the most popular trends for 2016 include fur, leather details, suede and fringe details. People are willing to spend the money for these trends, but the way consumers spend their money will be different than it has been in the past years. In the past few years, shopping has been done virtually which is putting brick and mortar retail businesses in a difficult position. Online shopping has become the most utilized form of purchasing within these few years. New technological advances mainly contribute to the uproar of virtual shopping. Mobile shopping from smartphones is projected to increase from $3 billion to $31 billion just within the next year (Business2Community). Like our customer, millennials are the generation that's making this all possible. By 2020, it is said that this generation will have more spending power than any generation (Business2Community). This means that they are in tune with technology, usually meaning that they are active users on social media, which is becoming the dominating factor in online spending. The newest trends, sales, reviews and ratings can now all be found through social media, which creates a relatable and memorable experience through online shopping for the consumers. Our customer is fond of the most popular social platforms, which is her way of finding out what's new and what's hot. As a result, brick and mortar retail businesses are beginning to change for the worst as the year progresses. In 2016, we are expected to see more turnarounds, bankruptcies and store closings than ever before (Retail Dive). Mobile and online shopping is beginning to dominate the fashion industry and it is heavily effecting store sales in the long run. Even though our customer enjoys a day out shopping with her friends, she could always go for a day to lay in bed and click away on her smart phone for the newest looks to be delivered to her front door within days. Professionals believe that the only way people will be willing to leave their house to shop in a store is if these retail stores offer the consumers the greatest shopping experience because that is what the customer thrives off of. Product Competition: Evaluation of total market/market size: The underlying assignment aims at analyzing demographic and psychographic aspect of the targeted consumers for our product the \"Haley\" a loose flowy duster vest. The target market selected for discussion purpose is Southern USA and it is intended to discuss market size, factors affecting company's success, and evaluation of the total market as discussed below: Loose flowy vest jackets are under the product category of outerwear in the apparel industry-which is facing saturation in US market. The physical store retailing of US apparel market has matured such as retailers Zara and Forever 21. The overall size of the US apparel market is $ 249 bn in 2014 among which South US constitutes $ 225 bn (With The U.S. Market Saturating, American Eagle Is Aggressively Inking International Licensing Deals. 2015). Women's apparel has a market size of $110,826 m (Statistics and facts on the Apparel market in the U.S. 2016). It can be said that women apparel hold's a majority of share in overall apparel market. Since the company is planning to enter the market, it is expected that company would serve small proportion in initial stage. The advertisement and promotion would enable company to capture 0.01% in initial few years. The effective advertisement and promotions would pave the path of increment in market share. Factors that can affect our product success: There are numerous factors posing potential for affecting our success like fashion-forward design of loose flowy vest jacket. The fashion forward design is critical success factor making it comparatively easier for the company to attract customers' attention. It is also necessary for company to keep in mind designs and styles offered by competitors like ZARA, Forever 21, etc., which are leading fashion retailers (Fukunishi & Yamagata, 2014). The threat posed is their wide customer base, appealing designs and attractive offers thereby necessitating Maison Jules to take all these factors in mind at the time of designing our loose flowy vest jacket. It has identified that US market is flooded with wide variety of apparels. The high competing pressure and availability of numerous brands in the market creates a complicated situation for our company. The consumers of our Southern USA geographic enjoy high bargaining power as they are having high number of substitutes. The number of apparel players is high providing more or less similar nature products to consumers (Statistics and facts on the Apparel market in the U.S. 2016). Conclusion We are excited about the revealing of our Haley Vest for Spring 2017. We believe that this is a product that will resonate with our target market not only in the south, but also across the nation in the Macy stores. Our colors, tan and light pink are currently trending colors, duster vest are also reoccurring trends for the spring/summer so I believe that it will be a great fit for Macy's Retailer. The soft pink lace detail on the vest pockets and yoke will attract our feminine customers. We included two gold snaps conveniently as a closure as well as added detailing. We are producing our product in Asia. After our costing calculations we concluded that the suggested wholesale price will be $32.32 and the suggested retail price would be $92.34. We believe that this is a great price for our Haley vest for the Macy's customer. We hope that our product will be desirable to you, the buyers. We hope to receive your orders soon. Thank you. Testing Standards for Haley Vest: Crocking- AATCC 8 Crocking is the transfer of dye treated fabric onto other surfaces by rubbing. The Haley vest consists of a polyester crepe along with a stretch lace. The lace fabric has been dyed to create an ombre effect with dye color titled ballet slipper by company Deval Fabric Spray. Maison Jules will have a crocking examination on the dyed lace to ensure that crocking does not occur. If crocking does occur at the minimal-then we may continue with the use of this dye company and provide a warning label along with the vest during retailing. If crocking occurs at the maximum, then we will have to withdraw from the use of Deval's product and substitute the dying services to another company. Lightfastness- AATCC 16.3 Lightfastness determines fabric colors resistance to fading when exposed to light, whether natural sunlight or artificial light (such as retailing lights). Because light has the ability to disrupt pigmentation, this testing is critical for our Haley vest. Thankfully, polyester crepe is known to resist fading. However, the lace component of the vest is dyed so testing will have to be done on the dyed lace fabric. The Haley will be revealed in our Spring 2017 collection, which means that the Macy customer will get the opportunity to wear the vest during the hot summer months. Because our vest is quite casual and versatile, we expect that our customers will wear it out occasionally which will lead to sun exposure. Wrinkle Recovery- AATCC 66 The Wrinkle Recovery test determines the fabric's ability to recover from wrinkles and creases. We do not want out Haley vest to be a burden to iron. Our customer, Willow Rinehart is a busy, workingwoman who is married and has a child. Ironing is the last thing she wants to do early in the morning. However if she wants to, we at Maison Jules want to make it easy for her. Our polyester crepe must be able to recover from wrinkles in an instant. However, since our crepe is lightweight and thin, it is easier for wrinkles to occur. Fortunately, after our testing, we found that our selected crepe is easy to iron and resist creases. Strength Test (Tensile)- ASTM D 2261/1424 Our selected polyester crepe was selected by the Maison Jules design and merchandising team due to its color, properties, feel, and weight. Since the crepe is lightweight, we want to ensure that no tears will occur during the production of the garment or during the lifecycle of the product with our customers. The strength test is made to determine how the material will react under certain strengths. We aim for our vest to have a long life and would like to ensure that it will be safe during certain pressures or from simple day-to-day occurrences. Abrasion Resistance- ASTM D 3884 Abrasion resistance is the capabilities of a fabric to repel wear due to continuous rubbing off of another material. An ASTM test for abrasion is so important because we as a company hold a high standard in terms of the look and feel of a garment. We aim to utilize the best fabrics at the right cost. Our girl will most likely be wearing the Haley vest on top of a shirt, jeans etc. She will also constantly have to either sit in the car (the vest will constantly have contact with the car seat) or carry her child. Whatever she is doing, we want to make sure that the inside of the vest resist wear as the outside of the vest. Sewing the Haley Vest: The Experience Constructing the vest was an easy job with some bumps in the road. The silhouette was rather simple and minimal so there weren't too many complicated seams to sew. Another one of the easiest parts of this vest was the seam finishing. French seams are simple to sew and leave the garment with a clean finish. Even though the process was overall successful, there were some difficulties. The polyester fabric gave the most issues because sewing this type of fabric usually calls for puckering. A little ironing was able to take care of the job. Another issue was the lace because the fabric stretches, but the crepe does not. This lead to minor complications with construction and overall fit. In order to solve this problem, I had to sew stay-stitches and that solved this problem. In general, constructing a vest for Maison Jules was fun, simple and inspirational. -Amber Bowden Behind the Scenes of \"Southern Hart Of Chic\" video advertisement: (Short note from creative director) Hello, My name is VJ Thomas and I am the creative director and videographer for the Maison Jules Spring 2017 commercial ad titled, Southern Hart Of Chic. We chose to shoot this season's look at Philadelphia University's Campus. We mostly shot on the East side of School House Lane. We were able to reserve a perfect location-that is the backyard of White Corners House. We really loved the old southern house feel that White Corners exuded-actually the house reminded us a bit of our customer, Willow Rinehart's own home. The combination of the white exterior of the home, large windows, and of course the green of the grass and bushes surrounding the house was truly a picture perfect moment and a great location. We think that we got a couple of great shots. The sun was out, the weather was nice, and the flowers were booming. As for the styling, our model, Megan Sozio sported our Haley Vest with a very muted light pink blouse, jeans, and casual flat boots. She topped the look with a grey-rimmed hat. Her look is the epitome of casual chic that our customer is all about. We directed our model to be sweet, a little flirty, and loving light in this short film. Our model also fits into the millennial criteria so I believe our target customer will relate to her quite well. -VJ Thomas Work Cited Gomez, Vivian. "Macy's Sharpens Focus on Millennial Strategy for Fall." Retailing Today. 2 Aug. 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. . "Private Brands." Macy's, Inc. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. . Berry, Allison. "Macy's Sets Its Sights on Millennial Customers with Three New Brand Launches | TIME.com." Time. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. . "Maison Jules." Dresses & Clothing. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. . \"Macy's Private Brands.\" Macys Inc. 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