Carolina's vast internship experiences as an LIM student included roles with Victoria's Secret, Carolina Herrera, and more. Today, this Fashion Merchandising bachelor's degree program grad is an Associate Merchant with the luxury jewelry brand James Allen, where she still utilizes the skills she picked up in the classroom and through invaluable real-world workplace opportunities here in New York.
Please tell us about your current job role. What are you doing in your career?
As an Associate Merchant at James Allen, I support our merchandising team, specifically the Fine Jewelry category. I'm involved in creating and managing product SKUs and coordinating with vendors to ensure accurate data. I also work with marketing to ensure on- target product launches. My day-to-day includes maintaining production logs, handling sample management, and collaborating with international suppliers to keep everything on track. One of my favorite parts of the job is working with samples, as some pieces are extremely rare!
In what ways did your time at LIM help prepare you for your professional life?
One of the things LIM does best is pushing students to put them themselves in real-life industry interactions. My education at LIM was all about exposure. I had multiple class projects where I had to speak to industry professionals. I attended career fairs where I met people in the industry. Arguably the most important, I completed four internships that integrated me into the fashion industry, including merchandising positions, which is the field I work in now.
What internships did you complete?
I was an event planning intern at Patrick J Clayton Productions, where I learned to bring event visions to life, speak to vendors and clients, and more. My second was at Bellevue Parfums, where I was the sales intern and learned to work with complex sales software, which I'm very grateful to have learned as I've used that everywhere else I worked.
Probably the internship I was most excited for was Victoria's Secret, as a merchandising Intern. It had been a dream of mine since I was 13 to work for Victoria's Secret, and I still remember the day I got the call from the HR recruiter! The most memorable experience I have from this internship was a project where me and my fellow interns created a new assortment or a new product line, and we ended up created a maternity line. The last week of our internship, we were able to present it to the CEO as well as the whole office in New York.
My last internship was one of the most fulfilling work experiences I’ve ever had. Carolina Herrera is a brand I looked up to for as long as I can remember, and I got a wholesale intern role there. I would spend many hours in the showroom displaying the collection to buyers from all kids of department stores. I had the chance to meet well-known models, including Karlie Kloss, as well as the Creative Director Wes Gordon.
The hands-on experience I got working with these companies gave me the skills and connections I needed to break into the industry. Thanks to those early opportunities, I was able to hit the ground running in my merchandising career.
What did you value most about your time at LIM?
What I liked most was how close I was to the industry. Multiple professors took my classes to places where they themselves had worked, where we got to meet their colleagues and learn what they do. We visited Kleinfeld Bridal, IZOD, Saks Fifth Avenue, and more. I am a visual learner, and the lectures always clicked for me once we put it in a real-life situation.
What else can you say about the benefits of going to school in New York City?
Along with Paris and Milan, New York is the fashion capital of the world. The most sought-after internships and jobs in fashion are right here in New York. Fashion's most important events are held here. If you surround yourself with people in the industry, you set yourself up to eventually become a person in the industry. It’s all about proximity, networking, and being in the midst of it.