Tour Fashion Factory & Create a souvenir

Samantha and Jose were great hosts! Enjoyed my time in their workspace and became inspired to swamp out my own sewing room!

Awesome time learning about the industry for the kids. The kids loved having their own unique items that represented them and their time in NYC. They would had preferred being able to do the sewing etc themselves with more design options that truly represented themselves.

Samantha was great! I learned so much, in a fun and interesting way. I would absolutely recommend this tour

Unique experience. Different than anything else you can see or do in the city. Very interesting and eye opening to the textile industry.

Samanta created a tour of the Garmet District to meet my families needs. We specially brought my 85 year old mother as she wanted to see and experience the Garment District in NYC. In her working days, she was a home economics teacher/administrator, ran her own fabric and notations store and designed and constructed dresses for clients. Samanta designed our tour to give her a full experience from historical walking tour with background of the district and a tour of her own factory. Samanta gave the tour at Mom's technical level as she knows the industry lingo. This made the tour extra special. We also learned so much about the industry from learning Samanta's background and her fun industry stories. Samanta was also kind enough to let us come back to complete our souvenirs when we were running late for our next event. You can not go wrong on this great tour. Samanta was just awesome.

My daughter is interested in the Fashion Industry and will be starting school in the fall for Fashion Design. I thought it would be cool to get some insight from someone experienced. When we met Samanta we were greeting with smiles and genuine energy. She explained the past and present inner working of the fashion industry. Pointed out the different buildings and identified which garments were housed in which building and also learned why Times Square was named Times Square. An interesting tidbit that we did not know but was pleasantly surprised about. Then we proceeded to a factory for more lessons and review of some of her work. And in the end, we were able to part with a souvenir. Whether you are looking to enter the Fashion industry, or just want something fun to do, this tour is excellent. Keep in mind a tour is only as good as its guide and Samanta was an absolute delight.

My tour with Samanta was wonderful and I had an amazing time. This was the most personable tour catered to my interests of what I wanted to learn about fashion. Samanta shared so much knowledge and was an incredible host/guide. As someone who is fascinated by fashion and how things work behind the scenes, I loved every part of this tour. Designing my embroidered tote is a forever keepsake I will cherish. I’m so happy I booked this tour and would highly recommend it.

My granddaughter loved the tour and really loved designing her tote bag. She was very happy with her keepsake!

Our guide was engaging and informative. She showed our 14 year old and us many samples of fabric and then photos of the final designer dresses that had been created. We all enjoyed ourselves throughout the tour. It was fun to design the bags and t-shirt.

My son is a senior apparel design student and he wanted to learn more about the “real” apparel/fashion industry from a long time professional. We booked the tour with Samanta not completely sure what he would learn but we signed up. We met Samanta at the Sewing Man statue in the garment district right on time and we were excited that we were the only people in the tour that day. We introduced ourselves and explained our son’s goal to understand the industry better as he prepares to start his career. Sam understood our goal and adjusted the tour to help us get the most out of it. She showed us a full embroidery factory and explained how the industry has changed in the last 3-5 years. She was able to speak the same language with my son and show him how sketches are brought to samples and discussed how those samples get mass produced. We visited a couple of specialty shops to understand how you source some of the items to produce a sample piece. We visited a patterns, samples, grading and marking shop and talked with the owner and his team which was amazing. They were so welcoming to us and provided some really great insights. Sam’s 25+ years of experience was so valuable in helping my son get real answers to questions that you can’t learn in a classroom. We ended the tour in a huge, 3 story fabric provider where we talked about fabric sourcing and great ideas for collaboration with large brands. We really valued our time with Samanta and the insights she shared with us. She adapted the tour to provide the most value to my son which was tremendous. In looking back I wish we would have communicated our goal for the tour earlier as I think Sam would have been able to set up even more sites and have more information for us. That said, even with short notice Sam was able to deliver a great tour that really helped my son get some real world apparel industry knowledge. I would highly recommend taking a tour with Samanta if you are an apparel/fashion student looking for insights into the REAL industry.