It’s not always easy… wait let me rephrase….it’s never easy! Great news on our loan commitment from 1 lender last week followed by our secondary lender postponing their committee meeting…yes I am sure jumping in it is a little hard to follow – the point: delay! of another two weeks.  You would think I was trying to finance the Comcast Tower or something. Thank goodness I wasn’t trying to open before summer!  Remember the good old days when they would give anyone money for anything?  (o.k. so maybe it wasn’t the best strategy but at least we  have a proven track record).  In any event, we have a plan and it will work but the holding pattern on the start of production and fall orders continues….

We have another fitting tomorrow, I think after 6 rounds of fitting on pants that we may have come up with a series of great fitting pants…. any suggestions on what you find aggravating about buying pants or what you are looking for when you buy them would be greatly appreciated!  we want to have the perfect fitting pants as they are so hard to find.   As a matter of fact, at market last month (Coterie and D&A)  you could walk the floor and virtually no one had pants – dresses, skirts yes – but only a few of the larger established brands were even showing pants.  Though I confess that I haven’t really worn pants or slacks much for several years now and it has been trend for a long time, I am really excited about having a great pair or two!  Today we are working on tops, tops and more tops! Below is baby dress – in the last round of fittings tomorrow….  btw – still trying to get the hang of this blog thing and the pictures!

I’m off for my first night volunteering at PEC, I can’t wait!

Adios for now,

Sarah

during construction March 2009

I am back in the office after a few days in West Palm Beach with the girls and I really expected it to be done being cold!  Regardless, it is time to get back in the swing of things as its about to get very busy.  Today is our weekly branding meeting, it is really my favorite part of the week!  This week we are working on our 10 committments – what we are committed to as a company and what we are committed to for our customers.  It is really empowering to be able to create the kind of company that I have always wanted to work for – that is open and out to do the right thing, I will post them once they are all worked out but we are getting close!

As an aside to the store, we just recieved the order for the uniforms for Aureole restaurant in New York.  If you have never been there you really must!  http://www.charliepalmer.com/Properties/Aureole/NY/  they are moving in May to the Bank of America building that is on the Northwest corner of Bryant Park – We are really excited about this project.  Its a great restaurant and it has been great to work with Charles Pouchot who is their GM.     It will also be the first domestic production we have done!  This will be made in Chinatown by Philly Apparel Group.  Soon we will be making them in our own factory here in Philly too! Today Katya and I are working on the trims, pricing and ordering.  The fabric was ordered and luckily their were greige goods already available because we have a tight deadline.  The fabric should be here next week.

While I was gone Mike and Matthew finished the store wiring and the sprinkler guys came and installed the new sprinkler heads (we ripped out the ceiling and the floor on the first floor to gain almost an additional foot of ceiling height!).  Now I just need to work on fabrics for the clothes!!!!!!!  There is so much to do but it is really getting exciting.

1700 Sansom Street

pre-construction February 2009

That’s all for today!

So…. this is the first official blog on the coming soon SA VA webstore site.  Really, there is so much that is going on, I haven’t a clue where to begin so I will tell you what I am up to today and you can fill in the blanks as we go along.  Joe, my lighting Guru came yesterday to test my LED lights for the front display window in the store – they are amazing!  I don’t know why all retail stores aren’t using them!  So, you guessed it – lights are going in – Mike and Matthew are finishing up the wiring in the store this week so they will be happy that I have finally gotten them all of the info and picked the fixtures!

Katya who is one of our designers/product developers is working on blouses this week…I think she just finished the Judy, under 80 styles to go before production!!!!  Me, I’m still working on this loan business – not an easy feat in this economy but that is all that I’m going to say about that because I am leaving for Florida in 3 hours and am done thinking about it for the next 5 days!

You may hear from me while I am gone – I tend to get inspired when I have some down time!