Prior to beginning my placement with Fabulous Magazine, I was given a brief description of the tasks that my role would include which consisted of the following:
- Organising and overseeing the fashion cupboard
- Completing fashion returns
- Organising necessary couriers
- Completing the magazine mail out and updating books
- Assisting on photoshoots
- Writing up credits
Later on, I was provided with an intern guide which gave me a much more in-depth description of the various processes that would be required of me to complete each task. I tried my best (but failed) to learn the intern guide off-by-heart before I started the placement, but since I only had one week’s notice beforehand, it proved to be pretty impossible. The intern guide seemed a bit abstract and difficult to understand at this stage because I initially couldn’t relate the step-by-step instructions to any firsthand experience. With hindsight, I now know that there was nothing to worry about in terms of not understanding what was expected of me or finding anything too difficult to complete; my role was challenging physically, but mentally, each task was repetitive and simple. I soon caught on.
My first week at Fabulous was pretty scary, which meant I arrived nerve-inducingly early everyday ‘just in case’ something went wrong along the way. There were a number of other interns there during the month and I definitely got the impression that there is always a very high-turnover of interns. This was a bit problematic at times; everyone obviously has there own approach to completing a task and some are more organised than others. This meant that things weren’t always filed away or saved in the correct format and for the duration of the month, I had to deal with missing samples that had been lost under previous interns and members of once-permanent staff who had moved on. It always made me feel quite frustrated to receive an email from a PR searching rightfully for some missing samples which should have been returned months and months ago but had never been sent. Before this experience, I wouldn’t have believed that huge orders of dozens of samples could just go ‘missing’ in a cupboard a few metres wide - but apparently they can.
While it was difficult at times to work with so many other interns in such a confined space, I really enjoyed meeting and sharing my time with new people at a similar age and experience-level to me. It’s nice to know that I started my month not knowing another soul in London and now at least I know a few people fairly well at face-value. The repetitive nature of working in a fashion cupboard involves quite menial tasks. Excluding the extra tasks I completed regarding the shoots I assisted on, my day-to-day tasks in simple terms (rather than the sugar-coated description I was initially provided) would involve:
- Unlocking the main fashion cupboard, returns room and stylist’s cupboards
- Turning on the computer, logging into the e-mails and Fashion Monitor
- Checking the e-mails for anything sent after 6pm or before 10am that day
- Responding to enquiries about samples which had been called-back by PRs
- Searching for these samples and returning them either by multi-drop standard delivery, special 1st class delivery or by arranging for the PR to send a courier to collect them
- Returning necessary samples which had come from photoshoots that week
- Sorting through delivered samples and organising them into the stylist’s sections
- Notifying the stylists of deliveries
- Taking post up to the stylists’ floor
- Returning the backlog of other returns
I left Fabulous feeling especially proud of the number of backlogged samples I was able to return over the duration of my month there. I was told that the special delivery returns (which involve a much lengthier returns process using an online courier booking system) had piled high up in the corridor not long before I started, and at the time I left in had dwindled to just a few boxes of mis-matched samples. The staff at Fabulous were always really appreciate and kind, being lenient on rare occasions where I couldn’t work my full 8 hours like when I took an extra hour in addition to my lunch break to go to an interview at Alexander McQueen. It was a really interesting insight into the lives of a fashion assistant or stylist to be around to hear their conversations and chit-chat about work. They were sent a ridiculous amount of toiletry and skincare samples, alcohol, books and chocolates - all of which I had to carry up a flight of stairs to their desks on the next floor! Returning samples required me to think critically and prioritise certain orders over others. Due to the repetitive nature of the tasks, I had to be systematic and consistent in my approach. Organisation was vital and it made my life much easier to keep the cupboard as tidy as possible by clearing one task up completely before beginning another. As much as I tried to keep the cupboard spotless, it really was quite impossible to maintain with samples being thrown around left, right and centre. This was overwhelming in the beginning, but I learnt how to cope with the stressfully messy environment over time by keeping a level head.
Their overall opinions on bloggers really surprised me; it wasn’t positive, that’s for sure. A number of members of the Fabulous team went on work-trips to Ibiza and Majorca during my month there and came back with stories about stuck-up women with no social skills, glued to their phone and more concerned with looking good than having a good time. This mainly surprised me because when I see bloggers go on these brand-sponsored trips on my social media, they’re obviously portraying themselves in the best light and having the best time - enough to make their followers envious but inspired all at once. I got the impression however, that I mostly follow a different kind of blogger to the ones that Fabulous magazine could probably afford to collaborate with because the girls that I like write blog posts with substance and seem pretty down-to-earth to me - or maybe I’m just a bit naïve? I was definitely shocked to hear the stylists throwing around figures well into the thousands for the bloggers’ payments, even so.
At the beginning of my final week with Fabulous, a terrorist attack on London Bridge and the surrounding area struck and the News Building which houses Fabulous and the Sun, among other publications, went into lockdown. This was a really sobering time and in all honesty, it was difficult to feel positive about the placement for a couple of days afterwards since I felt so unsafe being metres away from where people had lost their lives. The MEN Arena had only just faced an attack, much closer to my home, and it was overwhelming to see it plastered over mock-up headlines and computer screens all day everyday in the aftermath. This was no different. At the beginning of that week, I felt homesick for only the second time in my living memory. I'd never felt so far away from the safety of Huddersfield or my little Lancashire village. Still, once the building was reopened under crazy strict security measures, there was a relaxed sense of community in the building which put me at ease. I definitely had some reservations - and still do to a certain extent - about associating myself with a tabloid newspaper, especially at such an early stage in my career when any experience is absolutely vital, but it really was so inspiring to look out of the cupboard to see actual living breathing journalists working hard at their rows of desks. I lived to overhear their conversations, especially as I was there during the run up to the election and post-result. The hypocrisy of tabloid papers like the Sun, who latched onto the anti-Corbyn rhetoric and then quickly backtracked on their skepticism was sometimes a bit too much to bear, but this obviously didn't detract from my positive experience at Fabulous and the valuable skills that I gained from my time. I take away from my month at Fabulous the satisfaction that I'm on the right track and pursuing the right career for me, as well as a huge confidence boost knowing that I organised the entire month away alone and miraculously pulled if off.
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