Today we’d like to introduce you to Thea Perez.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Thea. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
As long as I can remember, I wanted to be an artist of some kind and by the time, I entered high school, I had decided my career would be in fashion. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Apparel Design, I climbed the ranks at several companies working as a womenswear designer. My early career allowed me to travel the world from the Paris to Hong Kong! I was able to gain a wealth of insight regarding the inner workings of the apparel business and further develop my design skills.
Later in my career, I founded Thea Perez Design, a consultancy for the fashion industry. We specialized in knitwear and print design, as well as designing product for established brands, or design and development of entire fashion lines from concept to sample stage. My clients came to trust my sense of color and trend analysis, and I was fortunate to work for a wide variety of clients in the fashion and home industries.
Along the line, I noticed a common problem for clients and employers alike – every design office in the fashion industry is constantly working with an extremely challenging development and production calendar. It is the norm to be working on multiple seasons at once, each at various stages in the development/production cycle. This demanding schedule is one of the many reasons fashion has earned a reputation for being a very stressful business – it’s not for the faint of heart! I saw an opportunity to streamline the process for designers in the print development stage of their design calendar.
Most companies purchase print artwork to use exclusively on their clothing designs or other product. The artwork is usually bought from studios that represent independent textile artists, but much of the time they deliver a file that is not easy to edit and about 90% of the time the client does need to edit it – to put in their own colors, or create an accent print, etc. This almost always creates a backlog of work for the CAD designer in the fashion company (if they are lucky enough to have one!). I saw a chance to help alleviate this bottleneck and that’s when I started Polychrome.
Has it been a smooth road?
So far the big challenge has been to stick with it and put the insecurities aside. Being an entrepreneur is never easy. The days that go well can leave you feeling like you are unstoppable and on top of the world, but the days that don’t can leave you feeling like you are crazy and even irresponsible for pursuing your dream. Actually, most days are a roller-coaster of all these feelings and everything in between!
Each day has been an opportunity to learn more about the business and develop my professional and artistic skills. If you can focus on the fact that you are growing by leaps and bounds because you have chosen to challenge yourself, it makes you less worried about failing or (the worst feeling) that all this work has been a waste of time. Whatever happens with the business itself, you have cultivated skills and gained experience that you will retain no matter what.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with POLYCHROME – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Our collection of exclusive prints includes the work of dozens of artists from around the world. Many have worked in the fashion industry as well, but there are several that are from various artistic disciplines such as painting, photography, sculpture, even architecture! This diverse pool of artists and designers make our collection unique. I am very proud of all of the talented people we have attracted to be part of our team, and at the same time, I am genuinely humbled that they trust me to represent their work. One of the things I count as an achievement so far in the business is that we have built a virtual studio for all these talented artists to create and support one another in making the most beautiful work they can.
In my role as Creative Director of Polychrome, I guide the team to create prints in line with upcoming trends for the fashion industry. Eighteen months ahead of the season, I and my internal team release fashion forecasts and all of the artists develop their prints to work back to these hot trends and color palettes. These Trend Reports are also available for purchase on our site to keep our clients the know about what up and coming trends are important to include in their lines. Our trend reports are concise, clear, and targeted because our clients simply don’t have time to wade through days of research.
On the surface, Polychrome is an online marketplace for original print patterns and trend direction for the fashion industry, but in reality, we are in the business of saving time for our clients. Everything we do and all of our products and services is aimed at this goal; in that way, we are very different from other print studios. Our exclusive print patterns are every bit as beautiful and on-trend, but they are also engineered to be extremely easy and fast to edit. In fact, we can confidently say that our prints can be edited in about a quarter of the time of traditional prints!
What advice would you give to someone at the start of her career?
If you have it in mind to start your own business, work full time for other companies first and absorb every bit of knowledge like a sponge. Learn as much as you can and make mistakes at these early jobs because it is much more costly for you to do so when it is your own company!
Also, get mentors; this is vital even if you do not want to be an entrepreneur. Find people who have some qualities or achievements you aspire to and don’t be afraid to march right up to them and introduce yourself. If you are looking to start your own business, there are so many organizations that offer mentorship and guidance, especially in the Boston area.
Lastly, network like crazy – your career depends on it. Be generous with what knowledge and connections you can offer and it will come back to you. Make sure to also venture out amongst people who are doing things outside your immediate sphere of interest; you will be surprised what insights you can have when you are mingling with people whose work is very different from yours.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.polychrome.design/
- Email: thea@polychrome.design
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forpoly
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forpoly
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/forpoly
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/polychrome-design-/
Image Credit:
Polychrome
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