Alumni

Grad Turns GUESS Internship Into Product Development Position

Students in the Premier Merchandise Product Development Group had the opportunity to meet and network with FIDM Grad Cassidy Sonnemann this week. She works for Guess, headquartered in Los Angeles just a few miles from FIDM, and visited her alma mater as a guest lecturer sharing her story of how she got her start.

The quarter Cassidy Sonnemann took off from FIDM was a pivotal moment in her career. That’s when she participated in Guess’s summer internship program, which turned into a part-time position, which after graduation turned into a full-time job as a Product Development Assistant for Menswear.

She graduated from FIDM nine months ago and has been at Guess for a year now, and with another promotion on the horizon, she couldn’t be happier.

She learned about Guess’s internship program as a student on the Denim Study Tour, where she visited the headquarters of top denim brands in Los Angeles. She applied, got it, and took a quarter off from FIDM to focus on it. It has paid off.

She is now fully immersed in product development, working with vendors, developing prototypes and reviewing them with design. She breaks down costing, and works on everything from trims to processes to testing.

“Based on the retail figures, I have to determine how to hit our margins,” she said.

In addition to menswear, Cassidy is also responsible for licensing, off-price, and special projects such as Guess’s collab with Dr. Romanelli. The collab is providing first-hand experience with domestic manufacturing as she is working with a company in Long Beach on the project.

At the end of her discussion, she opened it up to a Q&A session with the students. Eager to learn more, they asked what they can be doing now as a student to prepare themselves for their first job in product development. She advised that they become experts in Excel and to really know their fabrics, critical for success in PD.

Categories:  Merchandise Product Development Alumni