Dallas Fashion Project

Items

• Ignaz Gorischek - 11 - Italian fortnights
  Italy chosen because 70% of designer luxury goods (leather, textiles, cars, etc) came from there, tour of Lamborghini factory and zippy ride in car, "Where else would you get these experiences? Why would you leave?" amazing friendship with other professionals working at same high level
• Ignaz Gorischek - 10 - Neiman-Marcus fortnights
  Worked on at least three (Texas, two "festa de Italia," centennial celebration, and "happensuch" flower show), "work like you can't even imagine...like putting on a state fair in a store," travelled to countries for weeks at a time and immersing in culture; in Italy was with "pupi" puppeteers in their home in their personal wine cellar and gave him bottle of wine from anniversary year; "visual build this experience" and challenge company to come up with creative projects, got Fornasetti to work with Vespa to create new product, "unique and unusual, not the expected"; at one point had to act as a "counselor" to get them to follow through with projects; "fortnights pushed you to the limit...I remember working sixty days straight, just for coordinating the fortnight...but you could never get it anywhere else but Neiman-Marcus"
• Ignaz Gorischek - 09 - Neiman-Marcus merchandised train
  Billy Payton created the first customer reward program (InCircle), created train with merchandise that travelled around several states, created "millions and millions of dollars of marketing and advertising," amazingly challenging to pull off
• Ignaz Gorischek - 08 - "DNA of Neiman-Marcus" continued
  Neiman-Marcus built on people who are good at what they do and secure with what they do, also people came and really stayed at Neiman-Marcus, considered a newbie until hitting the ten-year mark, commitment people made to company understood after being there, understood once was there and was really happy, "you became part of that DNA, which made you feel like you were a co-owner almost, which is a nice comfortable feeling," everyone pushing the envelope
• Ignaz Gorischek - 07 - "DNA of Neiman-Marcus"
  Entrepreneurial, "big in size and stature...that acted like a little mom and pop on the inside," from the outside seems full of huge egos but was in practice the opposite, with Neiman-Marcus behind you you always "got to the front of the line," "everyone in Dallas had a Neiman-Marcus story"
• Ignaz Gorischek - 06 - Moving from Burdines to Neiman-Marcus
  Florida department store tailored to Florida lifestyle (later became Macy's and white box), stores were unique, atrium treated as museum where curator Charles Senseman (sp?) who would develop collections that rotated around to different store locations, created luxury experience rather than just selling high-end products; was nervous about moving to Neiman-Marcus and had hard transition because of uncooperative staff, creative people can be vicious, once built own team at Neiman-Marcus was "like night and day," got to work with great talent and travel the world and meet famous people, must work hard to get there
• Ignaz Gorischek - 05 - Relationship with retail practice
  "Three-dimensional story telling," relationship with theater, visuals that connect with someone, "opportunity to try to get someone to stop in their tracks," would take escalator rather than elevator to hear what customers are saying to get feedback, problem solving and risk grow as career does
• Ignaz Gorischek - 04 - Building career in retail
  Importance of building own craft and style, need to stand out, highly motivated in workforce rather than academia, "my talents came out in the retail world," looked to short and long-term goals and for mentors across the field, "the further up the ladder you go, the further you get from the creative part," providing vision rather than creativity further up towards management, made the choice to move up the ladder but always have one project to flex creative skills, value of growing people
• Ignaz Gorischek - 03 - Early interest in fashion illustration
  Intrigued by advertising, combination of commercial art and advertising, liked to draw, fashion illustrations appeared in newspapers regularly, but then sidetracked into visual through sporting goods store job, applied commercial art concepts to display which also used design principles, "people are playing me to go into work and play," follow opportunities and learn along the way, importance of trying things when you're young
• Ignaz Gorischek - 02 - Beginning of career in retail
  Career began with first display "based on a joke," made goofy display in ski shop in sporting goods store, had aimed for career as commercial artist but pivoted with that job
• Ignaz Gorischek - 01 - Introduction
  Biography of narrator, in department store world for over 40 years, started right out of college, made career "out of being creative," with Neiman-Marcus for over 25 years, focused on customer experience, later dec
• 1920 Census: Denton County (Sam Norrod)
  US Federal Census of Pilot Point, Texas
• DRC: "'Yes We Did It,' Reads Note Found on Newspaper Man's Door Signed 'K.K.K.'"
  October 21, 1921 article from the Denton Record-Chronicle about the lynching in Pilot Point
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 35 - AIDS crisis and Neiman-Marcus response
  Not much response to AIDS formally, did get involved with fundraisers
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 34 - LGBTQ people in Dallas fashion community
  Some homophobia in older people, very widely accepted today
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 33 - AIDS epidemic and fashion
  Slowly lost colleagues, has a friend who survived, lost a lot of talent and good apparel designers and artists, worked with a lot of gay people in visual environment
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 32 - Dallas fashion community
  Dallas Apparel Mart gave greater opportunity to flourish, Market Hall with gift market, publications were helpful (like "Inspirations"), important to stay in touch with people you've been exposed to
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 31 - Typical day of work in Neiman-Marcus corporate
  Look over area for "little things," review merchandise, know what was ahead to learn about next promotion, work with artists like Allen Shaffer for paper sculpture make make display more special
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 30 - Fortnight as fantasy
  Balancing education and entertainment, "plenty to absorb that was true culture" but at times compromises made to make facade work for the store, "there's a lot of make believe in visual"
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 29 - Fortnight products still owns
  Table of tiger eye wood from Brazil fortnight, wool rug from Irish fortnight, purchased small pieces along the way, has several posters including one from Japan that was framed
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 28 - Japanese Fortnight
  Personal interest and travel before event, merchandise felt different than most Neiman-Marcus offerings, food was very different
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 27 - Learning about Fortnight countries
  Staff relied on information from Alvin Colt and merchants, who traveled to countries up to years in advance and worked to find funding for the events
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 26 - Fortnight as Dallas community event
  Event that families attended, "you could learn a lot from it," a lot of history, tradition for people in Texas
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 25 - Fortnight in other Neiman-Marcus locations
  Minor props, some of the merchandise from other country available, occasional personal appearances, sometimes bring in local examples of culture
• Ruth Ann Johnstone - 24 - Rest of merchandise during Fortnight
  Stored in back, some still available on sales floor, earlier on more happened than later on, became very expensive, later didn't have the same impact