Hilary Beck | Sales & Builder [In every sense of the word.]

After graduating from Michigan State with a degree in Merchandising Management my focus in my first two jobs in the fashion industry was on the visual aspects of stores and windows. Beginning with an internship at Neiman Marcus, and then with a full time position at Anthropologie in the suburbs of Chicago, two very different but both extremely valuable experiences.

After taking a small break I started managing and then buying the kids product for a local chain of stores in Chicago called Active Endeavors. On my first buying trip to LA I stumbled into In Play Showroom at the end of my day, and was met by one of the few people my age in the kids industry, who happened to be Sandra. I asked if I could make an appointment for the next day, Sandra asked if the jacket I was wearing was G-star [which it was] and she said “I love G-star, I think we are going to be very good friends” and we were from then on….

I continued to work for Active Endeavors taking over the women’s buying position and traveling out to LA regularly to visit and work with my friend Sandra from In Play. After 5 years with AE I was ready to move on and was told and knew that LA is where I must be!

I landed a job with PROJECT Tradeshow and worked first on their retail development and then in their sales department for my first 2 ½ years in L.A. Sandra and I always talked about working together as our friendship had only continued to grow with my move to the West Coast, but as we all know working with friend can be an amazing yet scary proposition. It took a last minute trip to Mexico, which I almost missed because of work, with a group of our friends for me to realize what an amazing opportunity it would be to work together. So we did it and I am proud to say almost two years later, we are still friends….

Katy Daher | Sales & Social Media Brain

I grew up in Atlanta, GA and graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Fashion Merchandising.  During college, I was offered an internship at a high end children’s boutique in Alpharetta, GA.  Initially thinking I wanted to be in the women’s market, I reluctantly took the offer.  Luckily this was one of the best decisions I made, as I found out how much I enjoy the children’s side of the fashion world, which unknowingly would eventually prepare me for In Play Showroom.

I became the manager of the children’s store after graduating, but soon decided that Los Angeles was the place I wanted to be.  I sent my resume out to the showrooms in New York that I had worked with, and asked them to forward to their contacts in Los Angeles.

I didn’t find a job right away and decided to take a risk and move anyway (against my parent’s wishes of course!).  After landing in sunny California, I was hired at Bloomingdales where I worked for a few months.  As fate would have it, my resume had fallen into Sandra’s hands and I can still remember the day she called and asked if I could meet. We were both very excited about working together and though I appreciated the opportunity, I was ecstatic to be saved from a major department store sales floor.  I started at In Play in September of 2007 and have enjoyed working with our clients and have been very busy building the marketing & social media aspects of In Play. We like to be on the forefront and I love to be able to learn and contribute along the way!