It never ceases to amaze me.
Whenever I tell people I am a buyer for a major retailer, they ask me, “Is your job like Rachel’s on Friends?” 
I simply tell them that 80% of my job is math and forecasting what I think the consumer will react to in the upcoming season. A life in retail is far from the glamorous Cristal-soaked photo shoots most people envision, I refer to it as "Wall St. for chicks." Instead of managing mutual funds or trading stocks, we calculate markdowns and react to selling trends with a “Buy, buy, buy!” or “Cancel, cancel, cancel!”
I would like to present you with a more accurate picture of what life in a corporate retail organization is really like. Most buyers are women who spend their days sitting at a desk in a cramped office dancing through financial spreadsheets like Dwyane Wade in the NBA Finals. And after thirteen years of working in the managerial levels of big retail, I know one thing to be true. In fashion, you are only as good as your last season, no matter if you are a buyer, designer, or merchandiser. If the line was a hit, you’re in good shape. If not, it matters almost nil whether it graced the pages of Vogue.
CEOs and presidents care about the bottom line, both in sales and reputation. They don’t care if the weather was too cold for your Egyptian sandals or too hot for your llama coat, and they could certainly give a supermodel’s waify ass if the Paris runway trends did not cross over the pond.
Reputation is crucial for a well-known brand like Ralph Lauren, which is in the middle of a huge resurgence thanks to the return of the “preppy” look from the 1980’s. Oh, wait, excuse me, now it’s the “Safari Connection” (AKA, polos with epaulets and khaki miniskirts). It’s not “preppy” because the fashion gurus are paid a significant amount of money to come up with new trend names, so don't piss off the higher-ups with recycled ones that already went through the pop culture washing machine. Sitting in meetings listening to the trendsetters, I feel like I should dig out the Preppy Handbook from my sophomore year in high school and mail a copy to all the lovely ladies at fashion consultant firms.
I’ll return to the role of the consultants in a moment, but first a quick career retrospective. A life in retail was not something I pursued as a bright-eyed college student eager to make her mark on the world, but in the early 1990’s when six-figure salaries weren’t considered a birthright, a job at a Sears in the Baltimore suburbs was the best paying job out there. As my wise sage of a father put it in perspective for me, “Would you rather have a job you love and only be able to afford Ramen noodles and a six-pack of Old Milwaukee once a month, or have a job that you could learn to like and go to dinner and drink beer every weekend?”
My choice was clear. Amstel Light, please.
Retail has become my passion, primarily because I get to enjoy the occasional steak and martini. I began my career at the birth of the successful "Softer Side of Sears" campaign and have moved around from town-to-town, company-to-company, until I landed in Herald Square, where I am currently helping Macy’s take over the world. I’ve been fortunate. It’s great working for big companies at the height of a boom: people are generally happy and offices get renovated. There are no hedge-fund type bonuses, but a view of Midtown is nice too.
Another misconception about retail is that it’s a vibrant, young industry. Uh-uh. There are a lot of hangers-on out there. In my years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many veterans in the industry. A few -- like Kenneth Cole -- had incredible journeys and are still at the top of their game. Many others were hot twenty years ago, got to hang out with greats like Betsey Johnson, bombed and now work as sales reps for some small manufacturing company telling everyone within earshot that they’ll make it again. Listening to the stories of fashions of yore, I often want to shake them until they get out of retail and figure some other way to make money. How can you go to a job everyday knowing that once you were great, but now you sell to buyers who want cheap goods at a cheap price for the fashion-retarded runway known as the “mass market?” 
Get out already.
I suppose that is the same thing as athletes "retiring" and then coming back to the sport four or five times, but Good God…have some pride…call it a day while you're still on top.
Speaking of individuals who stay longer in the game and get paid handsomely for it, all of the fashion-consulting firms are run by older women who reached the peak of their careers while Ronald Reagan was still in office. (Of course you remember those days, it’s when the “preppy” look was in.) One group -- the ladies of the influential Tobe Report -- take the time to come in and give us their interpretations of the runways and European trends. The first time I attended the overview, I could not stop giggling at their outfits. You might think that they would be stylishly overdressed from head to toe in the fashionably loud outfits of Fashion Week. Nope, one woman had Naturalizer shoes (prized demographic consumer: your grandmother), orthopedic hose and a boucle blazer, which actually was a hot trend, but didn’t exactly go with the rest of the ensemble.
Trends are relative to begin with, but what I find hysterical about utilizing consultants it is that we can easily look up the latest fashions on the Internet, in Parisian fashion mags, or on that NY Metro channel that loops runway shows from around the world. But hey, good for them. They get to travel the world in their golden years and have big companies pay for it.
As buyers, you begin seeing the following season’s trends about a year out, followed by making sure inventory is heavily penetrated. If it takes off, you are guaranteed sales. The small problem is that not only is your store covering that trend, but so is every other retailer from Saks to Target. Most trends these days fit in every tax bracket, which is why you see all of the same outfits walking down just about any street in the country. This summer, it was the cotton polo style shirt with an alligator on the breast, Bermuda shorts and flip-flops. I would, once again, refer you back to the Preppy Handbook, available for $5.00 on Amazon if want to brush up on hip yuppie-era duds. It’s a simple formula: Wait twenty years, give it a new name and bring out the same clothes you wore in college. I’m looking forward to the return of the “lumberjack look,” which used to be known as “grunge.”
Recycled or not, what I find truly amazing is that so many women spend time scouring fashion magazines in order to sport the hottest trends, just like their next-door neighbor. Why, exactly, do people who consider themselves fashionable want to look like everyone else? If a society dressing exactly the same is the height of fashion, should 
we consider Hitler an important 20th-century trendmonger? I realize I am the pot calling the kettle this year’s new black, but even as one who shoves the goods down fashionistas throats, I wonder about the oxymoronic rush to be a trendy conformist.
And I say this, of course, as one who just poured another big glass of the Macy’s Kool-Aid….
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