Interview: Catherine Jones // Fashion Promotion Student

Hi Everyone!

I hope you've all had a great Summer holiday if you are still in school, and by the time I post this if you've gone back to school then I'm sorry but I hope you made the most of your six weeks off! I'm going back next week which is a little nerve racking but I am prepared to some extent so hopefully this year should go ok! But anyway,still on the topic of school (sort of), I interviewed my Mum's friends daughter recently who is about to start her second year of her bachelor honours in Fashion promotion. I thought this would be a great platform for you guys who are interested in fashion as a degree but no sure what side of it you'd like to study, and it'll give you a better idea of what you'd do on this course and so on. I know I'm only in year 11 but I'm definitely struggling with figuring out what I want to do for college so this definitely helped me understand a bit better. But now I'll pass you onto Catherine!

I am about to start my second year at UCLan (University of Central Lancashire) studying a 4 year Bachelor of Honors Sandwich Degree in Fashion Promotion. My first year was very eventful, adjusting to moving away from home, living with strangers and making new friends was daunting at first but was a great experience and I encourage everyone to do so.

 I love my course and have some amazingly talented course mates. My most enjoyable moment of my first year was our research trip to London back in December 2013 where we where asked to collect images of visual merchandising techniques and go exploring and shopping which i loved as it was my first time to London. I also enjoyed our regular research task days out to Manchester and exploring the fleet markets of Preston. Although when it came to deadline time, everyone was very stressed and we spent a few 'all nighters' in the Library.

I've always been creative and arty from a young age and my interest in fashion grew whilst I was in high school in Ysgol Brynhyfryd, Ruthin and Studied Art, Textiles, Graphics at GCSE and Product Design (Textiles), Photography, Fine Art and Media Studies at A Level. 

During my first year of uni my tutors, Sally and Holly were great sources of inspiration and were great fun to brainstorm ideas with. I also gained a lot of inspiration from my course mates who came from all over the world and brought their own style and creative flair with them so it really opened up my mind and got my thinking outside the box. Everyone was full of ideas and inspiration just bounced around off everyone. I found a lot of social media platforms very useful when planning a project and gathering ideas such as instagram, tumblr, weheartit and most of all Pinterest. I can't stress enough how useful and important it is to have a Pinterest page were you can gather photos together into simple inspirational mood boards which really help you at the beginning of a project and gathering ideas and motivation along the way, think of it as a virtual sketchbook!

If i was able to study anywhere in the world, I would travel about as much as possible, it's my dream to travel the world. I'm a countryside and outdoors person so the big cities don't appeal to me so I'd love to study in Scandinavia, Canada or anywhere with beautiful views through the winter and be on a beach somewhere in the Mediterranean during the summer! 

I'm really enjoying my course so far and am eager to start my second year, catch up with all the fashion girls and find out what my new briefs for the year will be. Also I will meet my placement tutor who will introduce me to the different fashion industries and help secure my placements for my 3rd sandwich year out of uni. 

This year I loved the monochrome and pastels trends, and went a bit crazy for the big statement necklaces, I bought new ones every time I went shopping.  Now the autumn collections are coming out I'm really excited to see which colours and prints are going to be popular as winter is my favorite time of year for fashion, you can't beat the big cozy jumpers, fluffy fur lined coats and leather boots. 

I tend to dress for casual comfort day to day, so my go to thing would probably be my skinny jeans, whatever the colour they are easy put an outfit together with and you can dress them up or down, however I do spend most of my days in my Le Chameau Wellies working outside. 

My tips for anyone wanting to do a fashion course in uni would probably be to firstly do your very best at school and college to get good marks, have interesting hobbies and interests which inspire you and make you stand out from the crowd, have a strong and interesting social media presence where you can express you interests, try to build up a creative portfolio of your own work over the years which you can take along to any interview you may have, and finally find time to have a blog, I don't have one myself but my friends who do work really hard on them and universities and employers love them! 

 

I hope you liked this interview, and let me know whether you'd be interested in this type of course down below in the comments if you're still figuring out what you'd like to do in uni!