Blog # 219 I talked about Back to Milan and the Micam Show. In this blog I want to talk about Anna starts and back to China.

With Joanna leaving soon, I needed to replace the void with more people. It would be hard to hire a Sr. Level buyer right away, so we transferred Cassie over from the branded side as an AB and hired Anna who came from the Handbag world. She had worked at Inge Christopher, an upscale retailer that focused on Handbags and unique accessories. She would have to work with the merch team initially until I got back from China.

This trip to China was going to be a long one. 3 weeks from the end of April to middle of May. We had a full agenda. Needed to make sure the gel and boxes were going as planned and check out a QC company as well as new factories. Richard was going to join James and I later, so we decided to go to the factory that made our #1 shoe for RSVP. Oddly enough the shoe was called the “Diane” after my soon to be ex-wife.

The factory was making the shoe this day so it would be coming off the line and tissued in the box. We would see from start to finish on our own shoe. I was super pumped up about this and was disappointed Richard couldn’t see this in person. As the shoes were going down the line a sense of pride overwhelmed me. I felt like a new father! It was an amazing experience to see the shoe come down the line at the finishing stage.

James and I went to a few other factories that day and decided to just eat at the hotel. There were 4 great restaurants to choose from and we had a great meal to end the day.

In the morning we had the biggest buffet breakfast. They had everything you could imagine available to us. There was an omelet station I liked amd the buffet mixed western and asian cuisine which was amazing. We were to meet Richard later after breakfast to go to one of the biggest factories in China, Pegasus.