Inventory Processing 3
“Then I’ll be in touch.”
Seung-hyun gave a perfunctory farewell after seeing So-hee looking embarrassed at the two seniors bickering, then quickly left the student union building with an armful of quilts.
It must have looked strange, carrying a quilt out of the student union like that, but this was an art college. Nobody so much as blinked at him.
At an arts school, there was always at least one lunatic around somewhere.
······
Once he got into the car, Seung-hyun closed his eyes for a moment and replayed what had just happened.
The instant he touched In-hyuk’s graduation piece, a flood of details surfaced at once: the stitching quality, the cutting lines, the silk content ratio, the bead-attachment process.
Even though it was a finished garment, it was as if the state of the fabric, the seam work, and even the production process and material composition were all drifting dimly into view before his eyes.
It was nothing short of an information overload.
Even though it was all silk, the dress clearly carried the strong characteristics of fabric made for clothing.
But there were a great many odd defects in it, too. There were even places where the seams hadn’t locked together properly, and bead details that were off from the finishing line...
Things he had only thought, Something feels off here, now snapped into focus after the information came in, and he could see at a glance exactly what was wrong and where.
“Phew...”
After catching his breath and checking his condition for a moment, Seung-hyun realized he’d only felt a brief wave of dizziness and that there was nothing else wrong. A small smile tugged at his lips.
He didn’t know why it happened, but whatever the reason, having one more thing he could do was a good thing.
He was about to head back to the company when his phone rang.
It was Choi Jin-a from Daeryung Sangsa.
There was no reason not to answer.
“Hello?”
“Hello, President. I’m calling because I wanted to ask you a few things about the sofa we’re planning to submit for the exhibition. Would you have a little time?”
Incheon was a bit far, but since he was already out of the company, going to Daeryung Sangsa didn’t seem like a bad idea.
“Ah, then since I’m out right now, I’ll head over immediately. It’ll probably take about an hour.”
“That’s wonderful. Then I’ll see you later.”
“Yes, understood.”
After hanging up, Seung-hyun immediately took the Gyeongin Expressway and headed for Daeryung Sangsa.
“Welcome, President!”
From the company entrance itself, Choi waved energetically.
“Good to see you too, Manager Choi.”
“This way...”
Seung-hyun hurried inside after her.
In the company’s temporary exhibition space, a sofa made from fabric Haesol Textile had pulled out of the inventory warehouse was already on display.
Based on the fabric information, it had seemed like an excellent match for furniture, but seeing the elegant ivory sofa with his own eyes made him genuinely impressed.
“As expected...” Choi Jin-a said, stroking the sofa with something close to emotion. “How’s the internal evaluation?”
“It’s fantastic. I’m honestly grateful beyond words that you came and made such a strong pitch for us that day. Everyone went wild the moment the stitching was done. They were all saying this was going to work.”
“Haha, hearing that is a relief. But there could be issues with staining and the like. If someone wears jeans and sits on it...”
“Of course. Customers buying this kind of sofa take that into account anyway. For a house with kids that’s going to be used rough-and-ready, they wouldn’t even be looking at something like this in the first place.”
“Then that’s a relief.”
“More importantly, the total amount of fabric you’re giving us now is 4,000 yards, and we’d like to introduce a little more variation in the colors.”
“Huh? Ah... are you looking for different patterns?”
“Not too many. But I think there may be customers who want darker tones, so would a dark gray line be possible?”
Seung-hyun blinked, then thought for a moment about the fabric left in the warehouse and the yarn they had on hand. Soon after, he shook his head.
“Ah... it might not be easy, but I’ll check once I get back to the factory. The line we’re running right now is for lighter tones, and we still haven’t confirmed whether we can handle the dyeing process technology for high-density silk blends.”
“Please do. If the exhibition goes well, an additional contract is possible.”
It was undeniably good news, but Seung-hyun tilted his head.
“Can you really land that many contracts at an exhibition?”
Just the 4,000 yards they had already contracted was a sizable amount.
However successful Daeryung Sangsa might be as an interior company, it was still not large enough to be called a conglomerate. He had assumed even processing 4,000 yards would be difficult, and now they were talking about additional contracts...
But Choi Jin-a spoke without the slightest hesitation.
“There’s plenty of potential. Overseas buyers come to the exhibition, and quite a lot of businesses take our furniture in, slap on a different label, and sell it at a much higher price.”
“Ah...”
“That works out well for them and is still profitable for us, so it’s an even better deal. The only problem is that it has to be vastly better in quality than Chinese products.”
“At the very least, I can be fully confident in the fabric.”
“That’s why I’m asking. Please check and get back to me as soon as possible, either way. If the buyer wants a darker line, we’ll have to find another client on our side. Just keep in mind that if the deal is made after the exhibition, we’ll need to place the order right away from that point on.”
“Understood. I’ll call you.”
＊＊＊
As soon as he returned to the company, Seung-hyun grabbed the factory manager and explained the meeting with Daeryung Sangsa.
As expected, the factory manager wore a dark expression.
“Dyeing is the core technical strength of each fabric factory. In the case of the high-density silk blend we supplied to Daeryung Sangsa, the fiber properties of silk and polyester are different. Silk is a protein fiber, so it needs acid dyes, but polyester is a different matter altogether. The dyeing time, temperature, pH, and so on all have to be adjusted differently depending on the fiber, but we still have almost no experience with high-density silk. This was also produced to the standards Taesung gave us, so...”
“Are you saying it can’t be done?”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. We’re not a company with poor technical capability, after all. It’s just going to take time. I can’t say how long it’ll take before the perfect color comes out.”
“Hmm... I understand. It’s important, so please go ahead with it.”
“Yes. I’ll also research it together with Technician Lee Hyeok-min. If additional business is possible, we can’t afford to let this chance slip by.”
Factory Manager Park Han-soo gave a faint smile.
He had thought it was a one-off contract, but if technical development led to additional orders, then the company would unquestionably be stepping up to the next level.
*
Sunday morning.
Seung-hyun was taking a breather as he looked around a studio in Seongsu-dong that belonged to Haesol Textile.
Layouts for several brand logos and quilt package mockups were spread everywhere, while staff moved busily about organizing photography props.
“President, model Jang So-hee has arrived.”
As Lee A-young quietly let him know that the model for today’s shoot had arrived, Seung-hyun smiled brightly and nodded.
Coming out from inside, So-hee was wearing pajamas, not the sort of outfit she usually wore on campus, and the look was neat while still carrying a soft, cozy feel.
“Do I look okay? I came dressed according to the concept you told me.”
“Perfect.”
Seung-hyun gave her a thumbs-up.
A little while later, she had draped the white pajamas with the quilt Haesol Textile had produced, and the outfit alone was good enough to serve as an ad image.
“Oppa, this quilt... is better than I expected.”
So-hee laughed as she held the edge of the quilt and gave it a shake. The Tencel-blend fabric reflected the light softly and gave off an unexpectedly luxurious atmosphere, and more than anything else, the texture was excellent. It seemed likely to leave users highly satisfied in actual use.
In truth, it couldn’t have been anything but good.
There was an almost excessive amount of Tencel content in it for something meant to be sold as a low-cost quilt.
Seung-hyun nodded with satisfaction.
“Right. We pulled a few samples, and the staff reacted well too. Especially since it breathes well, it doesn’t get hot, and the touch is soft.”
“Just wrapping myself in it makes me feel better.”
So-hee pulled the quilt tighter around herself and grinned mischievously.
Soon after, the photography team checked the lights and arranged pastel-toned beds and cushions on the studio set.
Once So-hee sat on the set with the quilt spread over her beneath the neatly lit setup, the whole atmosphere grew even cozier.
“All right, So-hee, just turn your head a little in that position. Don’t smile too much, keep it calm.”
At the photographer’s instruction, So-hee smoothed out her expression as naturally as if she had years of modeling experience.
She still had a bit of a student look to her, but she carried a sweet mood that fit the bedding ad concept perfectly.
From behind the monitor, Seung-hyun watched the screen and kept nodding. Amid the soft clicks of the shutter, the quilt’s subtle sheen seemed to be captured beautifully on camera as well.
This is turning out better than I thought.
Seung-hyun felt his shoulders relax in private.
Creating the brand, taking photos, planning the pages that would go online, and handling every other step had all been completely new, so he had been running on nerves the whole time. Still, it seemed as though things were progressing exactly as planned.
The shoot went on for a full three hours.
So-hee worked through a variety of poses, smiling softly as she tugged at the quilt, wrapped her arms around herself, and leaned her head into it.
From time to time, she flashed a gentle smile in response to the photographer saying, “Could you smile a little brighter?” and when he directed her to “Stretch out as if you’re doing a big morning yawn,” she struck a cute little pose with a playful shrug.
During a break, So-hee lowered the quilt slightly and came over to Seung-hyun.
“Oppa, are you really not planning to use this at home? I tried it for a moment just now, and if the promotion on SNS goes well, I think the home-fashion side could react pretty well.”
“Once the edited images are ready tomorrow or so, I’m planning to put them up on Shopang right away. We’ve already picked a decent name for the brand too.”
“What name?”
“Cloud Dreaming—well, um... it has kind of a solo-startup brand vibe?”
So-hee snickered at Seung-hyun’s slightly embarrassed smile.
“That’s totally your kind of taste, Oppa.”
Even as she teased him, there was amusement and anticipation in her eyes.
For Haesol Textile, whose product range was still not very broad, a bedding launch was a bold challenge. But if it went well, it would open another path that didn’t have to rely on large-clothes manufacturing subcontract work.
“Then once the shoot’s over, the editing is going to the outsourced team, right?”
“Yeah. They said they’d stay up all night and get it done quickly. If we put it on the online mall starting the day after tomorrow...”
Before the conversation could go any further, the camera team turned the lights back on and So-hee returned to her spot, adjusting her pajamas as she went.
Seung-hyun was behind them asking the photographer, “Should we go a little brighter?” when his phone rang.
The caller was Factory Manager Park Han-soo.
When he answered, the manager’s urgent voice came through.
“President, Taesung Apparel says they’ll be coming tomorrow.”
“What? Why?”
“They say they’re going to do an emergency quality inspection, but... it seems they’re planning to pick at us like before and drive the unit price down.”
Seung-hyun’s eyes went cold as he spoke calmly.
“I understand. Tell the staff not to get shaken up and to carry on as usual.”
His face, as he answered, was ice-cold.