the wunder blog's week in sydney | day 3

When I woke up to my alarm this morning at 8:05 and looked out the window, I almost jumped out of bed with joy to see that it wasn’t raining, even though the weather report had condemned us to a day of walking in the wet. I think that set the tone nicely for my whole day; today was definitely the best day of work experience so far. I like to call it a Series of Fortunate Events. I got to meet so many diverse people outside the warm, bubbly sphere of the despatch team. With lots less to do in the basement considering that this week’s despatch day was over, I headed upstairs to help out at reception. In the midst of more delivery runs to David Jones and Harper’s Bazaar, today included a trip to the florist across the road, for one employees last day. This consisted of a sneaky plan and sneaky timing, as walking into an office while hiding a bunch of almost-fluorescent pink flowers is an impossible feat.

I then heard the beautiful words ‘You can go and hang out in Carla’s design room if you want’. I practically ran. Filled with natural light streaming through two beautiful windows, the design room is a perfect example of the beauty of messiness. Every swatch of fabric or spool of thread casually thrown over the industrial working tables looked like it had been artfully arranged. Literally picture perfect, Carla’s design room was exactly how I had imagined it, with samples hung up all over the walls. We got to speak to the assistant designers and makers and find out about the entire process of design and production. The start of the cycle is design and pattern making. Samples are then created and once they’re given the OK, the patterns are sent downstairs to be cut. The cut fabric is despatched to the manufacturers and the finished garments are sent back to head office, where they are quality checked, barcoded and then sent out to stores. (All things which I am now a professional in - sticking barcodes is now my party trick).

What I love about being given the opportunity to ask questions and meet these people is that I can gather this idea of how the industry works. I can now appreciate all this behind the scenes work that goes into producing garments and selling garments when I actually buy something in store. So many different people make their own impact on this process, just to make us consumers happy. It is such an amazing insight to have into what many people consider a superficial industry and has made me realise the sheer magnitude of the fashion industry.

What came next was a lot of excitement in the office when we received the call notifying us that Bianca Spender (a designer who shares the Carla office and who is conveniently Carla Zampatti’s daughter) had won the regional Australian final for the Woolmark prize. Running around cleaning the place up, trying to find champagne glasses (we ended up with 2, so everybody had to drink from tumblers) and excitement at the prospect of meeting Bianca Spender. It was such an honour to even have her walk past me, so I was so surprised when she extended her hand and introduced herself. It absolutely topped off my day to see how elegant and truly nice Bianca is.

Of course, my day was still dotted with lots of running up and down from despatch and lots of sorting. That’s part of what I love most at the Carla Zampatti office. The buzz and the friendly atmosphere. Need I say more?

Love, Ingrid