Life in the Castle

Alexis Pawoll '15

Going to Spain has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember; in fact, it was even the first bullet point on the bucket list I made senior year of high school.  Never would I have thought that I would get to share this amazing experience with two of my best friends and Alpha Xi Delta sisters.  We were lucky enough to all get accepted to the same program through UNL to Toledo, Spain.  We spent a month there from the end of June to the end of July, bettering ourselves in the language, embracing the culture, and just having a stellar time together!  We even got to meet another Alpha Xi Delta sister while being halfway across the world!

This trip would have been great on its own, but getting to share this experience with two sisters was beyond perfect. This memory truly will last a lifetime.



 

Anna Keiser '13

This summer I have been interning with the Product Development and more specifically the Raw Materials team for Kate Spade Mainline Apparel. At this position, I have worked closely with the Product Development/Merchandising/Design team to oversee the ending stages of line development for Summer 2014, as well as the beginning stages for Fall 2014. I have been working on tasks more specifically with the Raw Materials team for these two seasons. The Raw Materials department is responsible for finding/sourcing fabrics that we want to use in the line. What happens is our Creative Director creates moodboards for each of our deliveries. We use these moodboards to find/source raw materials that we feel will follow the theme. We then work closely with Design and our Creative Director to narrow these raw materials down to qualities that we really are in love with and feel that the KSNY customer will be too. We then work closely with the factories and mills to make these fabrics more unique for KSNY by updating the qualities to fit into our color palette or working with our CAD team to place prints on certain fabrics. We monitor all of this until the fabric is bought in bulk, which it will then be used to create the line’s garments. We also work closely with Merchandising to make sure that we are meeting cost when it comes to raw materials.

 
Besides working closely with my team on these jobs, I have been in charge of my own project that I am presenting in front of the Senior Executive board. This project is a reference guide for Product Development, Merchandising and Design to use that contains a complete analysis of our Cut and Sew garments. This analysis contains information from KSNY current Cut and Sew garments, an analysis of bloggers, and an analysis of a number of our competitors. I also created a techniques and materials page that was sent out to our vendors and mills to gather more qualities for us to use in the future. This internship has been amazing, New York City is amazing, and I encourage all TMFD majors in AXID to come out here and really experience the real world of fashion.

Jane Drummond '14, Emilie O'Connor '14, Kristen Philips '15

Over the summer Kristen Phillips, Emilie O’Connor, and I traveled to San Francisco to celebrate the 150th National Convention of Alpha Xi Delta. We met Ashley, our chapter adviser. The next few days were filled with educational session, award banquets, philanthropy brunches, and meeting many new people. The educational sessions focused on recruitment, member retention, social media, fundraising, Autism Speaks, alumnae relations, and sisterhood. The information gave the representatives of Rho Chapter new ideas to bring back in the fall.

We stayed at the Hilton located in the heart of San Francisco, which was a short walk to Union Square and some of the best shops! We also went to Pier 39 and saw the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Convention this year was filled with wonderful times and incredible people. One moment about this experience that really made me proud to be an Alpha Xi Delta was seeing one of our sisters who had been to twenty-four national conventions in her lifetime. The amount of dedication she has for our incredible sorority really proved that the bonds of sisterhood cannot be broken. My only hope is for me to be standing up 60 years from now at a national convention or in the Rho Chapter house explaining that Alpha Xi Delta is not just four years as a collegiate but it is creates bonds that will last a lifetime.