Happy Friday Travelers!

This week has been filled with lots of articles and talks of names and their purpose and importance. On Sunday my pastor spoke of the importance of ones name and how it can subconsciously determine their future, there have been many twitter discussions on how blatantly ethnic names can hinder one from getting a job or moving up in their career, and lastly three fashion articles regarding Jil Sander, Yves Saint Laurent, and Doo Ri have surfaced which makes me ask the question..Comment vous appellez-vous?

It's no secret that I am a branding junkie and love to read and analyze about how  a company brands itself and its product, and there is nothing bigger in a brand than the very thing that creates the first impression. Before I started working in the fashion industry it never occurred to me that one could lose ownership of their name. In my world if say, Calvin Klein left, then the brand Calvin Klein was over, bye bye Gaultier, doors closed....so not the case. When I first realized that I was incorrect in my assumptions I got a bit angry, partially due to the fact that I am the only Mei-Li that I know (I am sure there are others, Asian, find me a black Mei-Li and I promise she is under 6yrs old), and no matter where one goes like Beyonce not one person can say her name and they go...the singer or...same with me, I'm an original and worked hard at being the authentic me and for someone to tell me they are going to carry on Mei-Li with out the Mei and the Li, well I'm not okay with that. So what's hind the scenes of all that to make a person walk away, or in Sander's case, come back to their name? What is that contract process? I recently heard a horror story about a well known and super talented designer who has an awesome fashion brand in her name that no longer belongs to her but is making millions. She was shafted by a former partner who has got to be living a serious yacht lifestyle off what her parents gave her in love...her name.

We now live in the age of sign and sue where contracts and court cases are as common as top knots and peep toes, and I don't understand any of it. I am glad that I am exposed to it in some frame though. As I await to hear if I have been accepted into graduate school for my MBA in Management Consulting I am seeing all the needs of the industry. Though I don't deal with indie brands directly I have a heart for them. There are some great brands out there with amazing product that don't get the recognition they need or close their doors too early due to lack of funding for things like decent PR or low sales. Thankfully social media helps the tech savvy work their way around that, but I would love to see more brands follow the Dries Van Noten route and not sell to larger companies no matter how much they promise autonomy.

I'll end this post there, there is so much more for me to learn and understand before I can get in a deep enough post/conversation/debate about this subject, but it was on my mind and I really am interested in how my degree in Management Consulting can help me help small companies keep their name, flourish, and run efficiently. There ends my thoughts Travelers! Until next time!!

"One Step Forward, Just Glance Back. No Fear, Just DIVA!"