Discover this fashion career: tech designer [part 2]

Created and written by Brandon Graham and Elizabeth Wilse of PinkyShears.com

Behind Every Good Designer is a Great Tech Designer | Meet Nina Banks [Part 2]

Click here if you missed + discover this fashion career: tech designer [part 1]

Nina Banks at Andrew’s Coffee Shop in the Fashion District

Brandon Graham: How do the details a tech designer tracks affect the bottom line and consumption?

Nina Banks: Because we’re working with production and sales as well as the designers, we’re going to see a big picture of how any design change you want to make will impact the costs, and the consumption of fabric, to affect the bottom line. The designer doesn’t look at the technical reality behind the design. If we’re using different fabric, different stitching, our costs are going to be different, affecting profit. The designer doesn’t always know how to peel apart those kinds of structural details. Seeing those technical details, that’s my job security, right there!

BG: I know tech design has become smaller and more specialized. Have you noticed any major ways it’s changed since you started?

NB: Well, the body, is the body, is the body. We’re creating shapes for bodies. Right now I’m having a great time because I work with designers who are older, who understand the body, and sewing and how to make a pattern. They’re experienced and academically trained and are about solution, rather than glamour and fluff. They want a great product that they want to resell every year and they want success with their company. I find younger designers don’t know what they’re doing and don’t care enough about making it right.

BG: Do you think that reflects the way clothes have been getting cheaper and more disposable?

NB: Customers love repetition. So if you have a blue hoodie this year, then you make a blue hoodie next year, with the same pattern. Change it with art, because people love love love repetition. A lot of designers know that. Unfortunately, young designers often start over from scratch with each line, instead of making a small modification to a design that sold well last year. Design advice: stick with what you love, and what the sales figures showed that the customer loved last year. If you’re going to make a change, make a small change to the wash, but keep most of last year’s design, because different doesn’t sell better, especially at a certain price point.

BG: How does what you’re trained to see as a tech designer change how you do ordinary things like buy your own clothes?

NB: It’s so painful to buy clothing (laughing) when you can see by how it’s made, how much it’s worth in terms of consumption. I don’t buy a lot of clothes, and neither do a lot of technical designers, because we know what’s done to them to get to that point, and we can see shortcuts or bad design.

BG: Is there any brand that impresses you?

NB: No, because I work so much I’m not out there and looking at stuff. I know better clothes are better quality across the board. I go to some stores, and I know I’m not going to have that garment next year, because of how it’s made or the fabric. If I do have that garment next year, it’d be a freaking miracle. When you buy better clothes, you get better results, things that last a long time, and are worth what you paid for it.

BG: On the subway I see guys who are proud to be in the suits they’re wearing, but I can see how badly they’re made. The lapel is draping, for example, it’s not crisp.

NB: So something they’re proud of wearing is sticking out awkwardly?  You don’t see it laying across the chest like a marriage between the chest and the body?

BG: I’ve spoken to one of America’s top tailors, Leonard Logsdail, who looked at me and said your left shoulder is lower than your right. He just looked at me and broke me down. He says it’s hard for him to get a suit that’s right for how his body is, how irregular it is. Even with his years of experience he’s just now figured out how to fit it for himself, to see the details of the structure.

NB: I’ve talked to designers and they don’t know what a curtain is, they don’t know what smocking is, they don’t know what sponging is. They don’t know what pre-washing or enzyme washing does to a fabric or a garment. A lot of them know denim terminology, which I don’t know, but they don’t always think about what a fabric treatment will do to a garment, like the shrinkage level or how do you measure your shrinkage. I learned that in school early, so I knew how to calculate percentage of shrinkage. Compare a swatch that’s washed to a swatch that’s not washed and adjust the measurement. You need to know that as the designer, making garments for somebody else. I was talking to a designer who wants to design for herself and there are so many things you need to know to not get cheated when it comes to your fabric. And you still could get cheated. That’s why I don’t ever want to produce overseas so that I can always know what’s going on with the garment, so I can have a garment that’s just filled with integrity. I really want to have a garment that’s all about America and walks the walk and talks the talk.

BG: Do people today care about the quality, how a garment is made?

NB: They may not as a whole, but I believe strongly that there’s a customer out there in children’s wear and even in adult clothing, who cares about clothing, who cares what she puts on her back. And that customer might not buy a lot of clothing, but they’re going to care about quality and structure at a deeper level.

BG: You’ve said that integrity is really important to you as a designer, maintaining good relationships across the industry and companies, in a changing job market. What’s important for a tech designer coming into a new situation or leaving one behind?

NB: The garments that are a season before you, have to mean nothing to you. If you’re coming into fall, or into spring, spring has got to be more important to you than fall. Designers are ready to move on. You go look ahead into spring being all new. It’s like what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas. It’s time to look ahead. Spring is going to be my shining moment and I might not even be there to see spring come into the stores, to hear comments from vendors, because of the way the job market is, because my company is literally moving. But if I leave, I know what I’m leaving the next technical designer who might come after me. I try to be conscious of what I’m leaving somebody else.

After I joined another company, the next technical designer praised the specs that I had left behind, showing that I knew what I was doing. At times, management will blame someone who’s left for things that go wrong with a line, but she resisted having that happen. You never think that you’re going to be defended in a situation like that, but she really defended me to management. And you know what my mother always said, if two strangers tell you the same thing, then you know it’s gotta be the truth. I never met her. All I know is that I did the job I was paid to do. I see kids wearing the designs I made. So what I was doing was working, my technical ability is what it is, and I’m happy for it. I love what I do.