Kerri BridgmanWhat I wish I had known early in my career is that materials truly make or break a product’s success.
What looks beautiful as a swatch can behave completely differently in production. Large panels of leather might show stretch marks. A dye might not take evenly across a single roll of fabric. And that one “perfect” print can suddenly become a nightmare once it hits the cutting table.
One of my college professors at FIT warned us first semester: “You’ll never look at clothes the same way a normal person does again.” - Linda Cohen
By my fourth semester, that same professor spent hours trying to help me sew my capstone project — a jumpsuit made out of the most gorgeous chiffon I’d ever found. It floated like a dream… until I tried to feed it through the sewing machine. Every time I hit the pedal, the machine completely ate it. Threads everywhere, chiffon shredded, me questioning every life choice.
Eventually, I gave up and hand-sewed the entire thing. Two 14 hours days in my childhood bedroom, calling out of work and completing my other end of semester projects at the same time.
The project wasn’t about becoming a designer — it was about understanding what goes into design. We had to draft patterns from our own measurements, create flats, make a muslin sample, and perfect the art of fabric cutting — all to gain a deep appreciation for what designers do every single day.
I still think about that chiffon whenever I see a fabric that looks too good to be true. Because sometimes, it is.
Now, I can’t walk into a store or scroll through an online shop without analyzing every seam, stitch, and fiber. I’ll happily spend $80 on a T-shirt that I know I’ll wear over 500 times.
Girl Math: $80 ÷ 500 = $0.16 per wear.
And yes, I’ve spent over $2,200 on a bag that I wore almost every day for three years.
Girl Math: $2,200 ÷ 1,095 days = $2.01 per wear.
As a production manager (and the oldest daughter), I love control — not in a rigid way, but because control gives me knowledge. Knowledge of where my clothes come from, who made them, and what went into them.
(Still my favorite purchase to date.)
That kind of control starts long before the first stitch is sewn.
It starts with the material — the foundation that holds the entire product together.
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