Forever Unique: Week One

Placement year once felt like such a faraway prospect that it seemed like it would never come, and now I've suddenly found myself hitting the ground running with five of the essential forty-two weeks under my belt. I said all along in second year that I wanted to be working and living in London for the entire 12 months, splitting my year up into a number of shorter placements in varied roles. Yet somehow, I've found myself accepting an offer for a 12 month position as Fashion Intern on the Creative team at Forever Unique in Manchester. It was a really difficult decision to make and I'm still truthfully questioning whether or not it was the right choice; the opportunity itself is amazing since my role is really varied and I'm exposed to all of the different departments that make up a fashion company, but I do worry that I'll miss out on the London experience since I'm now back at home with my parents and commuting in, and that I might start to feel a bit lethargic since this is the longest I'll have spent settled anywhere since I started uni two years ago.

I realised quite quickly during my first week at Forever Unique that I would definitely have the level of responsibility that I was promised; albeit I am still just an intern, but the tasks I've been set so far have been quite intense and that has been an absolutely terrifying adjustment to make. Having just about been trusted to send and receive samples and steam clothing for the past month, it will definitely take some time before I start to feel comfortable being responsible for the completion of really significant and important tasks. Not that I'm complaining - I had worried all along that I wouldn't be recognised for my hard work in a larger company and I was really concerned that I'd kind of 'slip through the cracks'. Having been drawn to intern positions advertised with smaller and start-up companies all year throughout the application process, I suppose, unexpectedly, that this is what I had wanted all along. 


TASKS THIS WEEK

Charity Danceathon preparation

Mancunian's are typically very proud of their heritage, and given the horrific attack at the MEN last month, there has been a fantastic display of community spirit which has really affected and uplifted the North West during such a tragically sad time. Fashion brands Missguided and Boohoo, both Manchester-based, have launched a non-profit collection of Manchester-themed clothing and Megan Ellaby, fashion blogger, has announced that she will be holding a charity clothing sale in tribute to the victims of the attack. During my first week, plans were also being put in place for Forever Unique to get involved in celebrating the lives of those lost and standing together in unity against terror. I was heavily involved in this early planning process, despite it only being my first week, by being set the task of designing t-shirts available to purchase on the night of the event as well as additionally designing an e-invitation to be sent to members of the press, bloggers and the public. I hope nobody could really tell how terrified I was by being granted this level of responsibility. I was SO fearful about getting something wrong or nobody liking my ideas. This is something I really am going to have to overcome ASAP because I know it's only holding me back from taking risks and really pushing myself creatively. 

Social

I also was responsible for creating a lot of social media content, including this notice about a sample sale held in London which I adapted from an original invitation design to fit into Instagram story dimensions. I also had a taster of setting up some of my own flat-lay designs for Instagram posts by laying out new arrival clothing samples with props and different lighting and backgrounds. This is a task which I've been told will be one of my bigger responsibilities for the year; it has proven that employers really do check your social media platforms as my line manager says he loves the flat lays I create for my personal accounts, and so it worked in my favour, as I think the team saw a niche in my creative skills here that they have been missing in their social media strategy. Being responsible for delivering a lot of important content really puts me under a lot of pressure that I've never experienced before, since even during group work in second year, I was still only ultimately responsible for my final grade and the consequences of getting something wrong definitely weren't as scary. Something I need to work on is not becoming too tense under the pressure to perform well, as I know this will only hinder me in the long-run.

AW17 Campaign preparation

My final tasks for the week involved the upcoming launch of the AW17 campaign. On my first day, I was briefed on the theme of the campaign which concerns space-age and futuristic concepts then set the task of creating some different Pinterest boards to get some ideas. I spent hours scrolling through Pinterest this week but I feel a bit disheartened that the task itself was really a bit pointless (so far anyway) since I haven't actually done anything more with the images I saved and nobody has had the time to talk through my ideas with me. I know that I'm not the priority as intern, so I've been feeling a little bit despondent that I haven't always had anything to do - especially since there was always something to do in the Fabulous fashion cupboard.


Something exciting that I did contribute towards the AW17 launch, however, was the design of some invitations to be distributed among the Forever Unique staff. The invitations are designed in line with the space theme, designed to replicate ID cards on board a spaceship. They will be printed on transparent perspex so I had to consider the requirements of printing on this kind of material - like spacing out the font enough and in a big enough size. I'm excited for the rest of the team to see these invites because I was particularly proud of the way the final design looked and it was a really cool opportunity to get to create something so unique.