As a lot of you may of seen, I posted my experiences at Lulu Guinness in a post yesterday. I can't believe how much feedback I got. So many of you tweeted me, emailed me and asked me questions on it I thought I would do another post answering all your questions and giving you my tips/hints on getting internships in the fashion industry.
Since I was 17 I knew I wanted to work in the fashion industry and instantly tried to find an internship. In most fashion internship you're expected to work for free, so I thought hundreds of companies would jump at the chance to offer me some FREE work. However I was wrong. Fashion is SO competitive and I soon found the editors of magazines, managers of brands and anyone else I emailed just didn't care and I was getting no responses.
It's partly a matter of luck, and also having a good covering letter and CV with experience. The most frustrating thing is a company asking for experience, but how are you meant to get experience if they don't give you it. Slightly unfair. My only suggestions are to try and get involved with things at university and glorify them on your CV. Or work for a few hours a week in a charity shop and get involved with the merchandising ect. It will look good on your CV and will hopefully help you get a good intern. I'm not joking when I say in all my time applying i've probably sent out around 500 CVs. In that, I probably got 30 responses... Keep persisting and you will get it eventually. When I was younger my CV wasn't great so it got easier the more I started to add on it. Lots of my friends were in the same boat, and we all just felt ignored as we were sending out SO many emails, but it does pay off eventually and they are all in good interns now.
A lot of you asked when what experience I had when applying for Lulu Guinness. I did have some although there are a lot of people with a lot more. If anyone is interested in looking at the things I have done, this is my Linked in page, I don't wanna spend 2 hours telling you about all my intern experiences haha!
When applying to companies make sure you find out who you want to speak to. No one will answer if you email a generic address with 'To whom it may concern' but if you get someone's specific address they are a little more likely to look at your email. If contacting magazines, look at the first few pages of the magazine for the editor's names and email addresses and then you can contact someone specifically.
Through applying to so many I have come across a few places that advertise fashion internships that are really helpful:
This twitter advertises so many each day and is current. It's probably the most helpful place on the internet for intern opportunities: https://twitter.com/#!/search/ukfashionintern
The other place I look regularly is http://www.fashionmonitor.com/Jobs. It's a great place to look as it's a professional site. If you're able to get hold of some log in details for Fashion Monitor this is perfect for finding out the address of who you are looking to contact in a company.
When you DO get that intern, work as hard as possible, even if you hate it! Being an intern is not glamorous because you're at the bottom of the food chain but don't complain because essentially these people are helping you. Not that it feels like it sometimes... But make sure you're not getting exploited in a bad company.
I hope this has helped and has answered all your questions, feel free to ask anything I have missed off. Sorry about the massive text heavy posts recently. I've got a picture full post coming up this weekend as i'm going to Wilderness Festival!
PS THANK YOU FOR FOLLOWING ME. I'M AT 200 FOLLOWERS AND YOU'RE ALL AMAZING.
Stay Cute,
Jessie
xoxo