Hi Everyone,

So this whole placement year is designed to help us learn more about the industry we want to work in, learn new and useful skills we can use to complete our degrees and in the workplace, and discover what kind of job we ideally want to go into in the industry. However when learning about what you do want to do you usually establish what you don’t like at the same time. So this weeks post is all about everything I’ve learnt so far at Amanda Kelly about what I don’t want to do in my final year and what I want to avoid like the plague in my career.

So far from my many weeks in London I have established 2 things that I do not in the slightest want to work with in my final year or life even if I were paid to and they are pleats and chiffon. Throughout the week I have been asked by Amanda to make several knife cut pleat skirts from old prints, all printed on chiffon. At the best of times I would struggle to do even pleats because of my hands but adding chiffon into this equation made it utter hell. I did however get to use my skills I learnt in my first year of how to do neat even gathering but generally I found it difficult because of my hands. So here I have learnt that I very much do not want to work with chiffon or pleat anything when in my final year nor in my later career.

I also have learnt that when it comes to fashion prints from the degree I come from and my personal skills doing fashion textiles for the living would be quite difficult. In comparison to the other interns whose drawings are all beautiful and life like mine are distinctive and more geometric or abstract, which according to the sales managers these more conversational styled prints don’t tend to sell as well to their clients who usually are buyers for high street retailers looking to sell to a mass market. However saying all of this I have been asked to produce my own ‘group’ of geo animal prints ready to sell for summer prints which is very exciting the idea of my little toucans or flamingos on towels and swimming costumes. Although I’ve concluded that I do not want to be a fashion print designer later in life it is certainly something I would consider freelancing at, as I enjoy general print design however personally do not hold enough fascination or drawing skills to do it as my full time job or at least not for mass market.

In my personal life this week I decided to take a trip up to my boyfriend’s for his birthday braai ( I think that’s how you spell it). Lots of his family came over which was lovely and it was nice to have a weekend out of London. We also went to see ”The Crimes of Grindelwald” which I have been waiting for since ”Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and it was just as amazing as the trailer. If you’re into Harry Potter I’m sure you’ve already booked your tickets to see this, if you’re not I would still recommend this film. Being separate from the Potter series it’s still more amazing work from J.K. Rowling, I would say however you must see the first film in order to follow onto this one as otherwise it can be a bit confusing. Overall however I personally loved it.