I have always been someone who has had a job. I started working when I was 14, after securing a weekend job at Pots of Art, following on from my year 10 work experience. Six years later and I still work there (yep, I feel old saying that)! I’ve had plenty of other jobs alongside that too, including working as a team leader for a youth group, being an e-commerce assistant and even as bar staff at a festival. That in mind going into my placement year, although nervous, I was excited to be working again! Six months later and my enjoyment of working hasn’t faded, instead I feel that with working in the area that I love, it has in fact grown!
I was originally only going to be completing one long placement, Absence of Paper, which sadly, as I have spoken about before, came to a sudden end when the company ceased trading. Although I was sad about this at the time, I like to think with the mind set ‘everything happens for a reason’. At the time it was hard to think that, but looking back I can see that things have worked out well since it ended. I have now completed 2 internships within 6 months and have 2 more lined up for the next 6 months! I have learnt that it is important to experience different types of internships, both with the role and the type of working environment, in order to truly understand what works best for you.
Absence of Paper, for me, was the perfect role. Working in a team of two, the whole production and product development side of the brand was left in our hands. I got to be super proactive and I learnt that this was the area of the industry that I aimed to get into as a career. Working so closely with the designer and developer meant that I got to learn a range of skills first hand, each being taught one to one. I also got constant feedback for my work, meaning that I had to learn how to quickly adapt my working way to suit my environment, an essential skill in any industry. Looking back the fall down to this internship was possibly that I was working in a home studio. I didn’t get the chance to mix with a larger team very often, which I would have liked as a way of making contacts. This also highlighted the fact that to make the work behind a brand run smoothly, communication is key, even if the team are split across multiple offices.
Henry Bertrand was a completely different type of internship. It was like taking another step even further back behind the scenes. Here I was working with a, still small, but bigger team than before, giving me the chance to mix and talk to others. Although I really enjoyed the internship and everything that I learnt while I was there, it has told me that I wouldn’t want to go into that side of the industry. I felt that I wasn’t able to use the hard skills that I had and the role didn’t allow me to be creative in the way I wanted to be. It was a good learning curve about what I want my career goals to be! That aside though, I cannot complain about the extent of fabric knowledge I now have going forward and the enjoyment I got from my time there.
The next 6 months, again will present me with two more different style internships. The first is at Amanda Kelly doing print design. This is an area that has always interested me and something I am excited to learnt more about. I am aiming to create my own print for my final collection and this will hopefully give me some more information on how to go about doing this. This placement will be followed by my last internship of the year at Teatum Jones. I will be back working in a studio environment, developing designs, pattern cutting and toiling. I feel this placement will have a similar structure to Absence of Paper, this time with a larger more established team and I am looking forward to it!
To quickly sum thing up, the past 6 months have been extremely successful, I have hopeful for what the next 6 months will hold and looking further ahead, I am excited for my career working in the fashion industry!