Week 13 - Raj Overseas
Part 1 - Prior Knowledge of Raj Overseas:
Before heading to Raj Overseas for a tour of their showroom, I had no idea what this company was and what they sold. After looking through their website, I learned that Raj Overseas as a company creates rugs and other floor furnishings for some large retailers like Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, etc. Furthermore, Raj Overseas functions as a large family of traditional craftsman that will ensure that the dignity and respect of skilled craftsmanship are guaranteed within each of their floor furnishings for their consumers. Overall, Raj Overseas tries to stay consistent to the organization’s vision of providing quality craftsmanship to their consumers with every textile they have by continuing to be innovative, fair trade certified, and socially compliant for their partners such as Target, West Elm, etc.
Part 2 - Observations During Raj Overseas Visit:
While at Raj Overseas, we got to meet Shelley Goldberg, the VP of Design & Marketing for the company. When we got to meet with Shelley, she was able to talk to us about how she started off as a fashion design major in college and was able to go from that specialty and switch over to her passions for prints and textiles and create her own business from scratch. For her, she said that transitioning over from a design major to print and textiles were very easy since her major allowed her to still learn how to do CADs and a lot of processes that design students use when making prints and other textiles. Shelley stated the major challenge she struggled with was finding the factory space and workers who would go on to turn her designs into nicely woven floor furnishings. To find this solution, however, Shelley was able to partner with a factory and textile makers in India who had their workers work with a fair wage, was ethically sourced, and even allowed for Shelley to come and visit once every year.
Part 3 - My Favorite Advice From Shelley Goldberg:
Before we left Raj Overseas, Shelley said something that resonated with me. What Shelley said that resonated with me was how if you ’re passionate about doing something, you have to see it through and work hard to achieve the dream no matter how much you want to give up along the way. This advice really resonated with me because I am currently working to start my career in the beauty industry, which has been a passion of mine for years and have an internship with a major beauty company. Additionally, this advice reps read with me because while I may achieve a passion of mine sooner than I expected, I have to continue to bring my A game every day and prove to myself and my possible employer that my true passion is being in cosmetics working as a buyer and continue to go the extra mile every day for them. Due to these reasons, this is why this piece of advice from Shelley really resonated with me.