Navigating Brands and Trends and with Rhea Aslin

Rhea Aslin is the senior brand director at SanMar, overseeing merchandising and design for several of our key brands. In this episode, Rhea explains how developing a brand is like telling a story, discusses what she does to stay on top of fashion trends and describes how the apparel market is having to evolve to meet customer expectations. THE FINER DETAILS OF THIS EPISODE   Rhea lays out her responsibilities as the company’s brand director and which brands she oversees. Which SanMar brand has been Rhea’s favorite over the years? How customers’ expectations of what their apparel can do is changing the way we develop product. Rhea explains what it’s like to go on a product “shopping trip.” How difficult it can be to develop a product and not have that piece be picked up for production. Which trend does Rhea look back on in regret? How she and her team analyze trends and try to predict which will stay and which will go.   QUOTES “My job as a brand director is to make sure all those ideas that the merchandisers have come together as one story.” “Did I produce the best results for the company that’s entrusting me to do my job? That’s how I measure success.” “We’ve programmed people to expect a lot and for a lower price.” “When you stop trying is when you become stale.”   LINKS   SanMar U homepage: http://www.education.sanmar.com/ SanMar’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sanmarcorp/ SanMar’s Twitter: @sanmar_corp SanMar’s Instagram: @sanmar_corp