Easter "Peeps" Show

Sam and I attend a contemporary non-denominational church here in the city called Forefront.  I’ve been a spotty attendee over the last two years, and last year I dragged Sam there once and now he regularly encourages me to attend.  The church itself as a community is pretty young on average – mostly college students and young professionals – and the services are held inside of a bar venue (kind of funny to walk into church on Sunday mornings and see signs for jello shots…), which is not abnormal in a city stacked on top of itself.  Our pastor is in his mid-thirties and dresses in a trendy New York style.  Sam is involved in a small group (bible study), and the people in it are incredibly fun and actually know how to party.  All in all, we love our church and the people that go there.

This weekend at the ever-popular Easter services, church was held at a larger venue across the street at a local college to accommodate for the additional once-a-year church-goers.  I must admit I’m not always the most attentive Christian student; I often find someone or something to fixate on that helps me get through the parts I may not find so interesting, and this service was no exception. (**As a side note, I personally blame my mother and my “other mother”, my Aunt Shellie, for this fixation habit, having grown up constantly hearing stories like, “We saw this woman on the plane that had THE BIGGEST pimple on the back of her neck.  I was just staring at it trying to will it to pop!”)

Just as the service was starting, this husband and wife came in and took the seats in front of Sam and me just as we were starting to sing worship songs.  I had never seen them at our church before, but I figured they were just trying out the Easter service like so many others.  I immediately fixated on the uneven bobbed haircut of the wife.  It was chin length all the way around except for a very thin layer at the nape of her neck that was two inches longer than the rest.  Additionally, the bob part itself looked like she had maybe let a blind person do it.  What puzzled me was that she had brown roots starting to grow in, so she obviously had her hair done somewhere….which got me thinking further – is someone actually telling her that this haircut looks good?  Those were the kind of meaningless thoughts that were going through my head and I had to force myself to refocus on the scripture up on the screen in front of me.  I continued to fixate on this meaningless haircut and also noticed that she kept leaning over to her husband and whispering things.  So you come to a new church, on Easter, and talk throughout the whole thing?  Hmm, interesting. 

Fast forward about 30 minutes later, and our pastor Brian was in full-swing up front, talking about the Resurrection.  I was listening intently and actually very engaged and interested in what he was saying.  That was quickly averted though as the wife, who had stepped out a few minutes earlier, came back and sat down with her toddler son, whom I guess was about 2 ½.  She held him for a while like a baby, which I thought was weird for a toddler, but then I thought maybe he was just tired.  But a few minutes later, the husband took the hand of the little boy, and they walked up the aisle and left.  He returned shortly sans the little boy.  We were sitting in only the 3^rd row in one of the side sections, so the whole show was happening about ten feet from the pastor and in my direct line of vision.

After church, Sam and I went to brunch with some girls from Forefront, who had been sitting on my left during the service.  Kristi said, “Oh my God!!!!  I could not concentrate because of that lady in front of us!”  I asked, “Oooh, you mean the lady with the crooked haircut?”  Kristi responded, “Well, yeah that, but she wasbreast-feeding her son during the service!”  Shocked, I realized that the initial thought that had come into my head when she was holding the boy like a baby was that she was breast-feeding, but I had immediately dismissed that notion since she was not covering herself at all and was in a public setting surrounded by hundreds of strangers. 

I know this is a hotly debated topic amongst mothers, and I myself am not one yet, so I can only give my own spectator perspective, which is: cover yourself when you’re in public.  I am not against mothers breast-feeding even in public, but there is a respectful way to do it.  It’s not just about your own personal comfort, but the comfort of those around you.  I can only imagine what our pastor Brian was thinking as he talked about Jesus’s sacrifices for us and looked around to his flock to see an exposed breast in his very short line of vision (I mean, let’s me honest, no man can concentrate when there is even mention of a naked or semi-naked woman, let alone when it’s right in front of them).

The other thing that I couldn’t get over was that this boy was walking, talking, and had a full set of teeth.  In my opinion, unless there is some sort of health allergy or sensitivity that prevents a child of that age from drinking some other sort of milk, he is too old to be asking his mom for a snack.

Needless to say, you won’t be catching me whipping it out at any future church services.

The fabric of our lives

Working in the fashion industry often lends itself to the stereotypical assumption that it's an industry just about shopping and gossip, driven by shallow unintelligent girls and gay men, who are super chic and spend their time backstage at runway shows trying to avoid the glare of one Anna Wintour, while sipping on bellinis and smoking cigarettes.  I'm here to tell you that the majority of us in the fashion industry do not experience life in this manner.

Yes, I work with people that you might liken to Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada," but most of them are not that extreme.  Don't get me wrong - it is definitely an industry where everyone is out for themselves and is extremely patronizing, but I also don't have a boss that throws a coat at my face when she walks in the door.  But the two biggest rumors I want to put to rest about working in the fashion industry are the following:

1. It is not as glamorous as people think it is, and
2. It requires more knowledge than just being able to spit off the latest trends in Vogue.

Before I go into my reasoning, I need to explain what it is exactly that I do.  Unfortunately, it always seems to be hard to explain in just a few words, so forgive me in advance for my wordy explanation of apparel production.  The best way to explain it is to liken it to a project manager or a producer of a movie;  I basically am managing a product and monitoring the people, finances, and timing that go into that product, from initial concept, to getting that product to the consumer.  The people that I manage include buyers/merchandisers, designers, product developers, and factories.  The finances I manage include cost negotiations of the actual product at the factory level, understanding international currencies and foreign trade/importing/exporting, factory commissions, & internal profit margins, among others.  The timing I manage relates to hitting necessary milestones in the product development cycle.  

Now that I've explained what I do briefly, that hopefully gives you a glimpse as to why I say my job is not glamorous; it is business.  I will go into that more throughout my future posts, but the purpose of this post is more to illustrate my second argument about the knowledge level required.

COTTON!!!!  No, I'm not talking about the stuff on the end of your q-tip, but the fibers that are in your clothes (although they are derived from the same thing).  In the last 9 or so months, cotton commodities have been priced higher than ever.  Prices have been climbing steadily since the middle of last year, with prices only holding for 24 hours or less.  The primary cause of the rising price has been demand ousting supply.  The low supply can be attributed to initial lower demand compared to other commodities such as soybeans and corn, flooding and droughts, poor quality of the crop, and government trading restrictions (suppliers even resorted to hoarding their crops out of fear of the fluctuating market).  Trying to manage a global business where cotton is one of your primary fabric fibers has thus become next to impossible.  

From a business point of view, companies have been forced to come up with new strategies in the hopes of saving money, or more accurately, reduce the losses they are inevitably going to have to take.  As prices first started to climb, retailers did their best to absorb the increasing fiber prices at profit losses in order to secure sales, but we are now in an environment where retailers have no choice but to pass on at least some of the expense to the consumer.  And guess what?  Those higher retail prices are coming to a store near you starting NOW.  

While the economy has very slowly been recovering (or so they say), we have not felt the effects of the worst of it in the apparel industry until now because of the length of the apparel product life-cycle.  The products that you are going to see in stores and shopping for this month, were designed 9-15 months ago, so the fabric that was purchased for that product was done late summer of last year, just when prices started to climb.  

We have finally started to see a small bit of relief in commodities pricing, but no one knows how long it will last.  New cotton crops will be harvested in August, so prices look to stay high through that time period.  So far the trends are showing a small dip in price September/October/November, then increasing again in December and beyond.  To put things in perspective, a year ago, cotton was selling at approximately 85 cents/lb; last Friday, April 15th, cotton was trading at 219.45 cents/lb, which is actually down from the all-time high of 243.65 cents/lb recorded on March 8th of this year.

OK, so have I bored you to death yet?  If so, that was not my intention.  My only intent has been to show you that fashion is still a business, and not just an on-going series of editorial ad campaigns you see in magazines and on billboards.  

When I went into fashion as a major in college, I certainly never anticipated that stock trading terms would become a part of my daily vocabulary, but here I am, just trying to figure out what the hell it all means.

Home away from home...

When I first moved to New York, I was broke (still am, just not as broke).  To make matters worse, I was making less money than I had been in KC for twice the cost of living.  In order to finance my life living in my dream city, I sought out some part-time jobs to supplement my suffering fashion salary.

I was able to secure a two-night a week tutoring job and a one-night a week babysitting job, totaling 10 additional hours outside of my full-time job at RL and $200 cash.  It was mentally, physically, and socially sacrificing, but I knew it was temporary and also necessary if I wanted to have any sort of social life on the weekends.

After a year of working three jobs, I finally got a promotion and was feeling quite worn-out keeping up with my work schedule.  Something to understand about these jobs, is that while financially the two families I worked for were similar, they could not have been more different in every other facet.  One family lived in the hippy West Village and the other lived in the family-oriented Upper West Side; one family had all girls and the other had all boys; and most obviously: one treated me like the help and the other treated me like a member of their own family.

After starting in on my second year with both families, a trip home and a conversation with my father changed things.  He couldn't stand me working for the family that treated me like the help.  "You're a smart, college-educated, beautiful, driven woman!" he said.  "Nobody treats my baby girl that way."  ("Nobody puts Baby in a corner!" much??)  He finally convinced me that I could do with only the one job and quit the other as soon as I returned to New York.

So that's what I did.   And I have never looked back after leaving the West Village family that asked me once how it was, exactly, I got home to Kansas City (was there an airport there?  Umm yes, as a matter of fact there is an airport...and guess what else, lady?  You're from Jersey, so get off your high horse...).

My UWS family was another matter, however.  Besides meeting Sam, meeting the *Curtis family is the best thing to happen to me in New York.  I am currently at the tail end of my third school year with Henry, who is now in 6th grade.  Every Wednesday after work, I go over there for two hours and help him with his homework.  It's not quite "tutoring" like it might sound to non-NYC people, but more a chance to give his mom, Connie, a break and a chance to get dinner ready for her family while I make sure Henry focuses on his school work.

What started as a job, has now become the most fulfilling and enjoyable part of my week.  I walk into their apartment without knocking, kick off my shoes, and go down the hall to the kitchen and open the fridge to help myself to a drink and maybe a snack.  I often spend several minutes chatting with Connie before Henry and I start on his work.

My time with Henry is work for sure (who remembers how to find the area of a triangle or the geography of Ancient Egypt?), but it has also evolved into something else that I'm still trying to put my finger on, something much more meaningful.   He's kind of like the little brother I never had, only we don't fight.  He keeps me young.  He shows me the latest video games and gadgets that are popular with kids his age, and the You Tube videos of the moment (after homework, of course ;)  ).  In the midst of all of this is the non-stop task of trying to shoe away older brother Nick from shooting Nerf balls at us (and I am definitely the big sister Nick never wanted!).

After homework is done, Hen and I mosey down to the kitchen where Connie is making customized pizzas for both the boys and husband, Jim.  Connie gives me a slice to snack on while Jim and I watch Jeopardy together.  I hang out with the family another 20-30 minutes and just catch up before heading back to my humble life.

And at the end of the night, I get paid for this?!  Yes!  But you know what?  I would do it for free at this point.  The Curtises are the most down-to-earth, midwestern-like family I have met here and they take away my stress and home-sickness.  Connie and Jim remind me so much of my parents, and I talk with them about the same things I talk to my own parents about.

Wednesday of the work week can be tough, and usually the last thing I want to do after a crazy day is have another obligation that involves anything less than holding a glass of wine in my hand, but I leave the Curtises home feeling refreshed and reminded of the things that matter most in life, which makes that long day worth every minute.

*Last name changed.

Rhys's Pieces

One thousand two-hundred and sixty three.  That is number of days since I packed my bags, got on a plane, and uprooted my life from Kansas to New York City.  

A lot has changed in my life in roughly three and a half years - some for good, some for bad.  But one thing is without question: it has been an adventure I have absolutely no regrets about embarking upon because I am a better person for it.  

This roller coaster ride has seen me gain friends and lose them; completely afraid and completely confident; poor and...well, poorer; depressed and happy; broken hearted and breaking hearts.   I genuinely believe I would not be the person I am today if I had gone through any of those things in any other city in the world.  Before living in New York, I had visited a handful of times, and even lived here for two months in the summer before my senior year of college; but the New York of someone that lives here full-time versus the New York of someone that's only seen it on TV or someone that's visited even 50 times, are not the same place. 

So why am I writing?  Firstly, I want to show people New York City through the eyes of a Midwestern girl instead of what you see on "Sex & the City" or "Law & Order."  Are the men here as abrasive and unbelievable as Carrie and crew portray?  Unfortunately, yes (luckily I don't have to worry about that anymore!).  Are their serial killers that kill prostitutes?  Yes, once in a while (i.e. there is currently an investigation for a serial killer on Long Island where bodies of four prostitutes have turned up).  But there are also so many things inaccurately shown on TV or portrayed by tourists:  the size of living spaces, the glamour of working in the fashion industry, the attraction of places like Times Square or Macy's on 34th Street, or what it's like to rely on public transportation every time you step foot out the door.

Secondly, and more importantly, I want to use this as a venue to stay connected to my friends and family who do not live here.  Believe it or not, there are times I do miss the life I had in Kansas and much prefer it over New York, and maybe this will be a chance for people to understand why.  

I look forward to sharing these pieces of my life with you.  With that I must bring my first post to a close because I've gotta head out for my football game...but more on that later...