Learning as I go

We all know that a big, major huge part of learning is hands-on experience. After all, you won't learn everything that you need in a classroom, no matter how insightful the teacher is, or how hands-on the class is. That's why everyone recommends doing an internship, or two or three while in school. I think that this is a great idea - I want to learn as much as I can about daily operations of a fashion business and I want to meet as many people as possible, hear their stories and learn from their experiences.

With that said, I decided to look for an internship for the spring semester. I spent a long time working on my resume, changing it from that of a marketing professional to that of a fashion design student. It was definitely a challenge combining past skills with new ones. But I finally finished it and last week I started sending it out. Craigslist and FreeFashionInternships.com are GREAT resources! I got 3 replies. The first was for a volunteer oportunity at the (capsule) women's trade show. I'm super excited about it, two whole days of meeting and hopefully helping and working with some of the hottest up-and-coming designers. I can't wait. The second two replies were for internship opportunities. Both were young companies, with really great clothes, I was really excited to meet them.

So I got myself ready and pretty and all set to go. And here is where the learning process comes in. These interviews were completely different then the interviews that I'm used to. Same format of course, you sit down and talk, but as I really don't have that much to say about myself yet, I had the opportunity to talk to these designers, and ask them about themselves, their studios and their work. And I blanked. You know that moment in an interview, or any conversation for that matter, when you know that you have to say something, and it really better be something good, and then it turns into just ask a question, and then it turns into just say anything, move your mouth damn it and nothing is coming out and you're sitting there smiling going "ummmm, yea" all in a matter of one minute or so? Yea, it was like that. And that sucked. And of course I got upset aftewards. But that made me think about what I should be asking, and what I would want to be asked about if I was the one interviewing. And although the experience was not the best, it did help me learn about how to prepare for future interviews, which is pretty good. And, even better, I did hear back from one of the interviewers, and he wants me to come in on Monday morning! Fortunately, even fumbling and bumbling can be overlooked when people know that you're just starting out and learning. And I can't wait to start :)