When I started my internship at Story I had mentioned to Julinka that I was really looking for a hands-on placement. I told her I wanted to be involved in as much making as I could so that I could pick up new skills. My fellow dps student that was joining me at Story was more looking to do social media etc, so this dynamic seemed to work quite well between the two of us.
Because of this, Julinka set me with a few tasks of amending some of the samples that she wasn’t too happy with. This meant I was cutting away excess fabric from some of the appliquéd flowers that were on one of the samples. This was nice to be doing something that actually involved the garments themselves. And it was nice to see how my efforts were having an impact on the look of the final sample.
I think when I first started I though that I would be doing more of the embroidery myself and I didn’t realise the process here in the studio was mainly on the designing side rather than the making. This was good for me to learn because I feel as though this is going to be the case in most placed here in the UK as all of the companies we were in contact with all outsourced their production to other countries, mainly India and China. This I suppose is understandable with the increased costs of production here in the UK.
The other main task I had this week was working on one of Julinka’s designs she was about to send off to the artilier in India. She had already started on the basics of it and had the shape and the embroidery elements already drawn out. She left me with the photoshop document and left me to choose the appropriate placement on the garment. Again, I probably over thought this initially as I felt quite a weight from the responsibility. But I got there eventually and we came to a design that we were both happy with.
It was at this point I was really starting to come to grips with what Story was looking for in their designs. Very commercial with flair but not too much creativity as this would make the samples harder to sell to the large clients we were approaching. Although this isn’t strictly what I was personally looking for when I’m designing I was happy to take on the brief and I was glad that there was a clear direction that Julinka was wanting me to go in and I didn’t feel so left in the dark.
