About me
Hello, my name is Blaze Best! I am 22 years old and originally from a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. Three things that describe me are: a big Boston sports fan, a sneaker-head and a growing passion for the fashion industry.
From studying in London to sewing on the floor of an apparel factory in Vietnam, I have pursued extraordinary opportunities to learn the in’s and out’s of the apparel industry. At a student level, I feel I have gained first-hand experience in all aspects of apparel design. I am prepared and ready to demonstrate my acquired skills in the fashion industry.
In university, I have polished my CAD skills and feel very confident in all of the Adobe suite programs (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Lightroom, etc.). With experience in Optitex, I have both digital and handmade pattern-making experience. I have developed womenswear and menswear draping techniques as well as learning the operations of both a home-sewing and industrial sewing machine during the course of my studies at Iowa State University.
My internships and study abroad experiences are further detailed below. Through these, I have had the opportunity to study footwear design in London, work on sports-therapy tech packages in Canada, and visit over 10 apparel factories in four different Asian countries. Included in these on-site experiences are R&D rooms and a first-hand sewing experience on a factory floor in Vietnam. Spending a summer in New York City, as a design assistant for a major menswear company, gave me the opportunity to handle an extremely wide range of tasks. Amongst these were attending fabric meetings with Italian mills to discuss upcoming season choices in midtown and assisting styling and fittings for the NYMFW runway show.
I am confident that I can be a great addition to any design team, and am excited and eager to get into the industry. Beyond my accumulated knowledge and experience, I believe my work ethic is my greatest asset. Putting in as much work and extra hours as it takes to get the job done is something anyone I have worked with previously has recognized and appreciated.
My goal is to be on creative design team. Because of my interest and passion to pursue a career in the fashion industry, I would be amenable to discussing any opportunity with the apparel design field.
Please reach out via my contact page, by sending an email to blazebest@gmail.com.
Industry Experience
Todd Snyder Internship - Summer 2018
Iowa native Todd Snyder makes luxuries for the modern gentleman effortless every day. Blending Savile Row craftsmanship with a downtown New York aesthetic, the line is relaxed, refined and always impeccably tailored.
As a Creative Design Intern for Todd Snyder a few of my full responsibilities over the summer consisted of assisting with styling, look-book photoshoots, communicating with Italian mills about fabric buying, and helping with all aspects of the NYMFW Runway show. More often than not I learned and experienced aspects of the industry I didn’t expect to. Sitting in on every meeting possible allowed me to absorb a ton about operations of the company and how they went about their design process.
In the slideshow to the left, I have several Behind The Scenes photos I took at the several photoshoots over the summer.
A large part of Todd Snyder is the collection they design each season for Champion. My last big task for the summer was to begin to research colors and trends for the upcoming Champion line. In the slideshow are the three final story boards that I developed for the upcoming Fall 2019 collection. These were used by the team after I left as a basis for the design of the collection.
This experience taught me a lot of in’s and out’s of how an high end apparel company operates on a day to day basis. Getting the opportunity to work with a very talented team, I am extremely fortunate with the insight and knowledge that I am now able to apply to my career.
London College of Fashion - Summer 2017
My study abroad at LCF gave me the opportunity to develop a footwear line from inspiration to final renders. After lots of ideation and phases of sketching, the Spring/Summer 2019 collection takes comes from guidance and great teaching at LCF and inspiration when exploring the streets of London and Paris.
Starting with three key words as a basis for research and development, my investigative collection takes inspiration from the Japanese sandals worn by the Waraji. Exploring new ways to create dynamic lacing concepts, I explored the ways that laces could be used as an aesthetic direction and not a functional one. With the expanding world of knit sneakers, laces have became insignificant in important when it comes to actual functionality, but abandoning laces all together hasn't yet been widely accepted.
Creating two soles to use throughout the line, I have utilized all knit uppers with various lacing methods, tapings and melted translucent overlays. From creating the brand “Instituted”, to in depth competitor research, discussing a persona of the market, to having a fashion icon as an influencer, my line encompasses taking Japanese heritage and bringing it to the streets of Europe and the UK.
TACTIX Gear Workshop - Summer 2016
Based in Montreal, TACTIX combines more than 15 years of experience and a deep knowledge of the multiple aspects of different sports, as well as a technological approach that allows exploring innovative and hybrid solutions.
There for the summer, I worked on two major projects throughout my internship. After just being approached by a company looking to expand into the Lacrosse industry by developing a helmet for all ages of play, I was given the task of starting the market research and early design development. Analyzing the standout competitors in the market, I found a price point that would be a good mark to shoot for, allowing the product to be affordable to younger players and their families, but also one that adult players can have confidence in buying. Several iterations of mood boards lead to lots of sketching, and eventually moving to the point of physically transferring the lines onto actual models. After weekly check-in’s throughout the summer, I passed the work onto the team when it was time for me to leave.
The primary project I was tasked with was working directly with factories in Asia to update technical packages on sports therapy items that TACTIX had already been developing that spring. After hundreds of emails back and forth between factories in Asia, I gained experience and understanding of how to properly communicate changes on soft good items through email and Illustrator files. As shown above, I would later travel to Asia to oversee the final changes on these items in person at the factories.
Asia Factory Experience - Summer 2016
Following my internship at TACTIX Gear Workshop in Montreal, I was given the opportunity to travel to Asia with one of the head designers I worked with throughout the summer. Traveling to China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, and Taiwan gave me a cultural experience I will never forget. Throughout the 3 week trip, we visited over 10 factories, with each one specializing in certain product categories that TACTIX was working on. Being involved in product development meetings and working directly with the R&D departments to prototype and problem solve were just a couple of the things I did. At each factory I was given a personal tour of all of the machines, processes and testing labs, as well as being given some “on the factory line” production and sewing training sessions. Assembling various things including a athletic compression short from the first step to last was an incredibly rare learning opportunity. Just being in the factories and seeing all the machines and processes that I had learned about in my textbooks, made the entire trip an invaluable experience that I will never take for granted.
United Sports Brands Sponsored Studio
Fall 2017
In the Fall of 2017, I enrolled in a sponsored studio class as part of Industrial Design degree at Iowa State. Through this class, we were given the opportunity to work with United Sports Brands as outsourced student designers. Each student took the task of an individual project and a group project. Under signed contract and an NDA, I am not allowed to show the full extent of my work in this class, as my individual ankle project is currently being filed for patents through USB and will be in stores shortly.
My individual project is a sports therapy ankle brace concept, that was originally designed for basketball players, but developed into a multi sport brace
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Contact me specifically, through email or phone to learn more about this project.