The Sample manager

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

With just five days until Jasper’s Spring/Summer 11 catwalk show, our busy Sample Manager, Elaine, seems to be everywhere at once.

This is not surprising when you consider her role – she manages the production of every design, from catwalk sample to finished made-to-measure garment. It is her responsibility to communicate every decision Jasper makes to a team of pattern makers, cutters, sample machinists, finishers and suppliers.

This requires an intimate understanding of the construction process and of everyone’s specialist skills - knowledge she has acquired over twenty-three years in the industry, over eight of which she has spent in Jasper’s studio.

Timing is everything in this job – a sample cannot be re-constructed before the pattern is modified - before an order is placed for new fabric from Europe - before the buttons being covered by hand are complete and before a zip, dyed to match, is rushed in via courier. To give you an indication of how much Elaine is juggling this season – she is making these considerations for over one hundred individual samples.

But it is this bustling environment that she thrives on and which she manages so gracefully. There is always time for “thank you darling’s” and she always arrives each morning dressed in a beautiful combination of quirky layers. Sometimes you can’t quite make out where her own clothes end and where the garment she is carrying begins…