Walking into a room full of second year students eager to
hear how the thirds years year out in industry went. First up was Jess Brown, a
Graduate from 2012; a success story as she now works for Crystal Martin
International. Crystal Martin is a supplier for M&S, Next, Mothercare and
GAP, and Jess is the Nightwear Design Assistant; she designs the nightwear for
M&S Classic range, or in Jess’ words “the granny nighties”, and the
character PJs. She does the research, sources the trimmings and fabrics and then
gets to develop the designs.
So Jess then started telling us about her year out which
was from April 09 to June 10. She was telling us that she didn’t know that she
was going to take the year out until she found out she got a nine month
placement at John Lewis, in London. While she was there she worked on the
design team, doing Lingerie and Swimwear from Monday to Wednesday and the
second half of the week she helped out on the Women’s Collection. She got paid
for her work; she said it defiantly helped with living in London.
When her placement at John Lewis finished in Dec 09 she
then went onto do a placement at Young Ideas which is did cut short, because
she felt that she had gotten all she could out of the company. She worked there full time, Monday to Friday,
9 till 5.30; this did help Jess out, money wise, the placement was in Derby so
she didn’t have to travel far, and she was paid £400 a month. Jess was in
charge of the website, maintaining it by taking photos of the stock and
uploading them onto the website and writing a little description about each
garment. I can imagine that doing 38 hours a week could get rather tedious. So
she left in May of that year, a month early. For her last month of the DPP she
worked as a Studio Assistant for Native Clothing, which is Based in Nottingham,
not to0 far for Jess to travel again, keeping costs down so that she could save
her money for her third year collection. At Native Clothing her travel expenses
were paid and she got free samples of the clothes that they made! That’s so
cool! The company was a supplier to big shops in the UK, like Topshop, River
Island and ASOS. They designed and then made up the design in the same day,
they then had it sent out to the Head Offices Buying teams. The speed of that
work, it must have been like a blur to Jess!
The DPP was a great experience for Jess, it definatly
helped her out for her final year of University, and that amazing collection
she made. The year’s experience helped her to get work straight after she graduated.
A roar of claps for Jess at the end of her presentation, whoever was to follow
must have been nervous; the flicking of pages to see who was up next. A talk
from Louise, telling us about the DPP.
First up of the third years was lucky girl Emma Henson;
she did 3 placements throughout the year. Her first was placement was 4 weeks
long at a company that designs Baby and Children’s Wear, Natures Purest. Emma
helped design the garments that would then be distributed to up to 400 retail
stores. The stores sell at least 10 to 20 of Natures Purest designs. Whilst on
her placement she experienced working on the shop floor selling the designs and
interacting with the customers. This placement was unpaid, but being based in
Leicestershire, she didn’t rack up a huge train bill. Emma’s next placement she
didn’t enjoy too much, meaning she only stayed there for 10 weeks rather than
the year that she planned. This placement was design and wholesale for
Christies by Design, she worked from 8 till 5 each day; I wouldn’t be awake to
get to work for that time, tell me how you did it Emma! Although you did get
paid. The company Christies by Design supplied stock to George and Debenhams,
that’s quite a diverse range, Debenhams being high end High Street and George
being a Supermarket range, I’d be interested to know whether similar things
where supplied to both stores or whether there was a huge difference in the
designs.
So Emma’s last placement was a Burleigh Community
College, quite a different place of work there, going from designing to
teaching 11 to 18 year olds taking them through there GCSE’s and A-levels. Working
11-4 two days a week, I would be living the life!
Kayliegh Parks, you’re up next, with some big placements
under your belt, looks like you’ve had a busy but interesting year. Her first placement was 6 weeks long at
Beaumont Brides, she worked 9 til 5 days and was unpaid. But with learning
about bespoke dress making, I wouldn’t mind being unpaid. The shop is in
Tamworth so is a 20 minute train journey from Derby, not too far. Whilst she
was there she was taught about the pattern cutting, the particular ways that
they do it, manufacturing, she said her sewing has improved a lot from doing
this placement, and was needed for her next placement! She had fun in the store
doing customer consultations and fitting the dresses to the brides and other
various important people at the wedding.
The next placement, the BIG ONE, Alexander McQueen, I can
understand why she wanted to go there, I would like to too, just for the
experience; I was talking to Kayleigh after the presentation, she said she was
so busy working there that she was always tired, and who wouldn’t be working
from 8 to midnight every day and then coming home writing her bit for the DPP
she was exhausted! She said it’s good for you though, it makes you value the
time you have to do other things and value your time at uni more. It was a good
experience. And while she was there she did a lot, she helped design for the
women’s pret-a-porter collection, she moulaged a sleeve that the lady herself
EMMA BURTON saw and spoke to Kayliegh and said she liked her sleeve and made
the designers use it in the collection! WOW a bit of our very own University of
Derby, Kayleigh Parks, you’ll be walking down the Alexander McQueen
Pret-a-Porter collection! Other things that she did at McQueen involved being a
Studio Assistant, sorting out photo shots, doing bits and bobs on CAD(which she
said she feels much more confident in) and research for textiles fabrics and trimmings.
Well I got to say there’s a lot there to be packed into 3
months. Whilst she was in London, she
was staying in “The Hyelm Group” accommodation, which is like a cross between
Uni halls and a youth hostel, she said she shared a room with another girl and
that on its own was an experience and a new friend for life. Ok so anything
after McQueen must be easy, right?
The next 6 months she worked for French Connection, this
was also unpaid although she had £5 for food a day, that was a nice gesture. At
French Connection she was the menswear design assistant; she worked on CAD a
lot, and when she wasn’t working with CAD she would be assisting photo shoots,
going to buyers events, and communicating with the international factories(must
be a big job) and also doing trend
research. She also did a similar job at her next placement, working for Markus
Lupfer, this was a 3 month placement in London still this time she was working
with womenswear. Kayleigh got to do the
model casting for the photo shots, I’d love to tell one of the models that they
were too skinny for the outfits, she would have been told off for that. She
also organised the press for the fashion show and getting the designer into the
media.
Speaking to Kayleigh really makes me want to do the DPP,
its sounds so exciting, forgetting about the costs, it would really help me out
too, as I don’t really know what I want to do when I graduate, and I think it
would really help to merge my skills and make me stronger as a designer. Maybe
the next person will change my mind and put me back in “no man’s land”, lets
see what Alessandra Defalco can tell me.
Aless, did 4 placements through her year out, she went to
John Lewis to pursue being a mens wear designer, she worked there for 3 months
for 2 to 3 days a week. She got paid £500 per month. She also had a really cool
experience working for a stylist called Susie
Couthard, they styled Natasha Bedingfield for her World tour, this was
only a four day placement but she said she enjoyed it so much and it was a fun
thing to do. Susie is her own company and they worked one on one with Natasha,
Susie Kindly paid for Aless train fair and she stayed in a hostel whilst
working there. Before working on that cool placement she worked for Jacey
Withers. Jacey Withers is a jewellery company that makes one off pieces, that
is bold and individual but still highly sophisticated. A company that is based
in London, and has a wide celebrity fan range, Dannii Minogue, SugarBabes and
Kelis are just a few to name. Aless got to work helping the design process.
The DPP Evening was a lovely event, professional but fun
at the same time, I really enjoyed listening to the third year’s time out and
what they have learnt. I am still unsure on what I would like to do next year,
I suppose like some of the third years I was talking to said it was a really
spontaneous thing, they found out they got their placement a month before
starting back at uni and decided to take the DPP year. I shall apply to a few
places I think I do a spontaneous decision when the time comes!
