My First Internship....

There was all this anticipation and excitement about starting my first ever internship, what would it be like? What kind of people well be there? Would they be nice to me? How would I get treated?

So Where Did I Do My Placement?????? - About the Designer & her Company....

My placement was at Mirjam Rouden, she is a textiles print designer who graduated from Central Saint Martin’s in 2003 with a MA in Fashion Print and soon after graduating set-up her own studio. When she first started out her main clients were French Haute Couture Houses such as Christian Lacroix where she designed and printed fabrics for the collections, here are some examples of her work....

She has now recently producing designs for commercial brands in London and US such as Zara, Faith, H&M, Urban Outfitters, Whistles, Banana Republic, GAP, Dorothy Perkins, Abercrombie & Fitch, Macy’s, Jigsaw, Lispy, Marks & Spencers, All Saints, New Look, Topshop, House of Fraser and designers such as Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Valentino, Donna Karan and Roberto Cavalli.

There are two sales people that travel around in various countries selling the samples, they visit Italy, New York, Los Angeles, Sweden, Spain and they often showcase at Premiere Vision and Indigo in Paris.

So who owns the company and how it is structured? Mirjam Rouden is the sole owner who works alongside her partner; together they run the business and the studio. The company is up and running through the profit made from selling the samples which mainly cater for Womenswear print design, they sell for approximately $675 which is roughly £414 for EACH SAMPLE!!!! Promotion of the company and its designs is done through the trade shows like Premiere Vision and Indigo as well as sales agents calling and travelling there are selling agents who are based in Japan and Australia, the designs are sold to USA mainly however there are clients in London, Italy, Korea and Australia. 

From looking at her website I was super excited and wanted to start straight away...I had all these ideas and thoughts that it’ll be an amazing experience  J http://www.mirjamrouden.com/index.html

My Role.....

When I researched the position it stated that the “intern will take part in designing for the company’s collection as well as helping out around the studio and preparing the collection for presentation. Could gain experience in hand painting with dyes directly on fabric, screen printing and Photoshop compositions.” I was really excited by the role and immediately emailed and received the internship.

So My First Day......

I made sure I looked my best as first impressions really do count especially in the fashion industry but little did I know what I was up for.....

The studio is based in the heart of East London in Bethnal Green spaced across two arches which is underneath a noisy railway bridge – one of the arches was used for printing and the other for drawing with office/editing area at the top. As I entered I saw a whole load of people majority of which are my class mates who I study print with...there was at least 10 of us, it felt like I was at university again along with 10 other interns.

The first thing we were told to is hand painting onto fabric using discharge paste, the collection was based on daisy flowers and we were using close up images of flowers as inspiration, we had to do this until lunch time. There was about 10-15 interns on one huge print table painting discharge onto black chiffon fabric, the annoying thing was that the discharge was drying on the fabric which meant we could see what we were painting - we could only tell after it had been steamed. The conditions of the studio was really terrible, there was no heating whatsoever!!! Standing for almost 3 hours in the cold was frustrating for all of us; we were becoming frozen statues fighting for the portable radiators. Then finally it was lunch...thank god!!! I was able to get some hot food down me and prepare for this afternoon. After lunch we went onto drawing flowers which were going to be scanned and edited on photoshop, still cold we huddled round a table drawing from the same images as before. Time seemed to go by slowly and couldn’t wait to finish the long day.

The Rest of the Internship.....

Mirjam liked my style of painting and drawing so I was assigned to do hand painting on fabric, I worked on other collections that were inspired by animal print and geometric shapes, occasionally I would be able to go to the other studio to draw and cut up digital printed samples. The designs and samples that I created were sold in America and some kept back to showcase at Premiere Vision in Paris as others were used as reference, there was a strict rule that none of interns were allowed to take any of the work they did home. 

I did my internship for about a month, I was lucky enough to go Paris to see the trade show Premiere Vision where I meet Mirjam again and saw her showcasing the designs we created, it was very eye-opening to see the journey from making the samples and seeing where they end up, here are a view photos of the visit.....

Designer - Mirjam rouden and Myself at Premiere Vision in Paris

 

My Experience.....

I enjoyed doing the work, I was able to be creative and see the drawing style of other interns and appreciate the amazing work they did.  My experience was 50/50, I loved the work I did and the people I was around were helpful and friendly, Mirjam was extremely nice – she would rather all the interns first thing in the morning and explained what she wanted everyone to do in a polite way – the atmosphere was calm and everyone got along really well. 

However the conditions were not suitable to work in.....maybe I haven’t mentioned but it was colddddddddddddddd!!! It felt like we were in the north pole....it was actually warmer outside and Mirjam had her two dogs living at the studio: ‘Nicky’ and ‘Fido’. They would roam around the studios like it was their home, they would come up to us whilst we were having our lunch and also would ‘excrement’ everywhere…which was definitely not pleasant to be around. Here are some images of the main culprit ‘Fido’…….

The Future...

Doing this internship has helped me a lot in terms of what I want to do in the future and working at Mirjam Rouden has inspired me to fulfil my dreams. The business approach is quite simple, she has majority of the interns unpaid and has substantial amount all year round resulting in a lot of designs and samples made considering each design is sold for around £300-£400 each a lot of profit is being made. However there are the overheads that need to be paid such as rent for the two arches, electricity, equipment, materials and paying the selling agents and admin staff.

My advice for any student or person who wants to do an internship is to be prepared, nothing is like it seems – it is a very exciting experience and you get to learn a lot about yourself and what you see yourself doing in the future...this is a creative industry and very fast paced, we are the next generation of designers we have to keep the momentum going...who else will????

I learnt to be even more independent, more creative and hungry for more...if you want something don’t just wait for it to come to you because it never will instead you have to run and grab it with both hands!!! No matter if the experience is good or bad it makes you understand what you want and don’t want from life after all it is your life experience. Even though it is a lot of hard work setting up and running your own studio/label but it can be done...with a bit of ambition and some the obvious blood, sweat and tears!!!!.......hoping the fact that you will have happy tears in the end.