February 2019

This month I have been reflecting on my career goals and asking myself a lot of questions. I have just over a month of my internship left which has gone too quick and thinking about how working in the fashion industry for the past 9 months has changed me.

I am so glad I decided to take this year out, although I have had the disadvantage of working unpaid. I have gained so many skills and knowledge that I can use for final year and for the future. At uni, I had a bit of a hard time with my mental health and working full time now I have tried to push past these anxieties of the unknown and my thoughts. I have pushed myself into everything and taken advantage of learning. Doing things that are so simple that I used to find hard to do, make everyday a bit easier.

My experience of the internship will help me in final year towards managing my time effectively. Having to work to deadlines day by day and getting up at a regular time to get everything achieved in a day, I have realised that missing a day at work or on my weekends, I am not very productive and need to set myself the same routine as a normal working day. Being motivated was a huge problem whilst at uni, I struggled as I had no set routine. If I had changed my routine at uni, I could have easily done more hours of work in the day and shifted my time to getting up earlier.

In my final year, I would like to do a collection (6 outfits) for my final project. I would like to push my pattern cutting skills and see what I can achieve from doing so by keeping to a regular routine that I have adopted in my placement year. A final collection may sway me in the future to help me to decide to create my own business, freelance for fashion brands or to work in a fashion house. There are so many questions from experiencing placement year and so many opportunities I have available with my skills.

Always finding new ways to organise and tidy the Zoë Jordan Studio

Image - Ali Wylie

Teaching myself a new skill of how to lock cells in Excel for an Order Form I am designing for our distribution centre

Image - Ali Wylie

Ali xox