DPP Evening

 

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!