Twice Over

Chapter 102 - Innovation

innovation
noun
1. the action or process of innovating - a new method, idea, product, etc.

The autumn weather is slowly getting cooler these days. Getting dressed requires more layers, but not quite the thick overcoats and scarves of winter. I'm wearing a clean pair of Levi ribcage wide leg jeans with a crop top jumper over a white singlet, finished off with a black pair ballet flats. Cleaning myself up didn't take long while Patricia and Grant cleaned the lobby floor. I spent an hour practising scales and technical exercises on my new piano while listening to Patricia explain the updates with the various investments I've been collecting since I was reborn. They all looked to be tracking as well as I expected without any major problems. This made me happy growing my future nest egg like this.

The cafe redesign and renovations that Wallace had asked Godfrey August to draw up were signed off and would take place next week once the current cafe owners retired and closed up shop. They were a lovely couple and had become my go-to venue for pre-class breakfast meals. I wasn't worried about the design that Wallace and Godfrey had come up with. In fact I let them go for it, knowing that Wallace knew a lot about restaurant design and building renovations. He'd done it all many times before.

Claire August, Godfrey's sister, had confirmed with Wallace as the event manager for my Crystal Pear lounge wear fashion show. When I spoke with Grandma and Grandpa Overmeyer about the clothing line I'd designed, Grandma didn't really understand how high end the product was, then once she had been presented with the sample gifts for her and Grandpa Overmeyer, it took some convincing for her to believe that her step-grand daughter had actually designed them and had them all made by herself. Silk was a luxury product and for a teenage child with a middle income family background to paint, design and make clothing of such high quality... It didn't seem to compute to her.

When Grandpa butted in at her exclamations of disbelief, he praised me for the wonderful clothing products. Mrs Overmeyer senior realised how rude she had been while I was right there in the room. She never bothered to apologise but took Grandpa's lead to praise me thoroughly. Once she realised her major mistake, she became my greatest advocate – next to Jac-Jac – for the luxury lounge wear line that her new granddaughter had created. She began to help Claire August plan and organise my show. Safe to say that my fashion show end of next month should become a big hit with the upper socialites of Mt Sommers City.

After piano practice, I spent the next hour going over the new sample products that had arrived from our overseas tailoring partner. The men's line products looked perfect. The colours were vibrant, the soft light material without blemish or pilling, and the dye bleeding was minimal between lines. The stitching was delicate but sturdy and the piping around the collar and sleeves and cuffs were satiny and flashy. I was pleased with the men's line, all five designs. The kids designs, both boys and girls were good too.

The only problem I found was the pre-washed sample fabric came back for many of the pinks and red styled of the women's line. Many of them showed bleeding and mixing of colours in the designs, with much of the vibrant fuchsia colours fading drastically. Holding up the pre-washed test samples that had been hand washed and line-dried in sunlight ten times each, it was easy to see that there was something wrong with the red and pink dyes used.

"I think a different dye needs to be used for the pinks and reds. Can you ask the company for sample designs using different dye products for these colours, please? Have the samples tested also so we can choose which dye product to use. I'm not happy with these." I rattled off the colour swatch numbers for each problematic colour that I saw on each designs, clarifying with Patricia which of the ten designs needed new samples. She took extensive notes, collected the incomplete samples, then mentioned about the clothing label washing instructions.

"They all have the 'dry clean' instructions, but I think that the problematic women's lines need the 'dry clean only' signage on the instructions." The label was a requirement for silk fabrics for the client to understand that even if the label says to 'dry clean' that they can actually hand wash themselves, as opposed to the 'dry clean only' which really indicated that it needed to be professionally dry cleaned only. I nodded in agreement, especially for the red and pink dyed clothing. Patricia took more notes, then moved on.

"The fabric shrinkage has been confirmed at 2%. We had this tested locally with all fabric samples." I looked up at her.

"So it is 100% silk and not a blend. Thank you. I was worried about that." I smiled. Shrinkage testing was a sure-fire way to determine the composition of a fabric without going to a laboratory for chemical testing. Any fabric labelled as silk that's shrinkage percentage was above 2% was guaranteed to not be 100% pure silk. A lot of places around the world would sell a 'silk product' blend as a pure silk product at the higher price without indicating it wasn't actually pure silk. Yay shrinkage percentages for the win!

"Yes." Patricia smiled, knowing I was worried about the integrity of using the overseas fabric manufacturing and sewing company.

"So, we just need to sort out this dye product. Please change it, get samples printed, tested and sewn again, then we should be ready for the full production run by then end of this week. Did they say how long the thirty thousand unit job would take?" I handed her back all of the samples and fabric on the design table in my office, then changed my mind and pulled out all the children's pyjamas for Jac-Jac and set it aside for my little baby brother.

"The whole job will take them two weeks from fabric printing to sewing and packaging. Baring something major happening, they can have it all shipped back to us in just over two weeks. Plenty of time before the show scheduled in a month's time." I nodded my head and smiled.

"OK. That's good. Thirty thousand pieces of product, ten women's, five men's, and five children's, it is a lot of product for a first run. Do you think five hundred for each set is too much?" I was worried they wouldn't sell. I waved my question and my concerns away. "Don't worry about that. Just make sure the deposit is paid today once you have the dye problem addressed."

"Yes, Ms Twice." Patricia nodded and made more notes, then picked the samples of the packaging we would be using for the swag bags, sample scarves and the sample chocolates that we'd found with Wallace's help. I took another drink of coffee that was starting to go cold, and we both got stuck into the next project on the agenda to sort through.

Half an hour later, I'd chosen all the required samples for packaging, scarves, chocolates and label thank you cards. I confirmed the invitation design and emailed it off to Wallace and his mother to check, then chose the chocolates for the event. We decided to go with was the rich flavourful Devonport chocolates and I asked Patricia to make the order now for delivery a week before the fashion show event. Wine tasting would happen later. I couldn't see myself going to class after testing wine.

"You have an hour for lunch before you need to head to uni for your next class." Patricia cleared my table as I moved back to my desk where my laptop was waiting. I spent fifteen minutes clearing email and moving finances around my various accounts and keeping it all filed correctly. I quickly checked news on the resale of the app we made, which was interesting as Wallace managed to profit five million dollars when he on sold it. That made me smile. I knew that Wallace wouldn't purchase something he couldn't make a profit on.

Closing everything down, I followed Patricia out of the office declaring it lunch time. Just as we arrive in my lounge, Grant came through the front door.