University Arts Funding

A massive issue at my university currently is funding for the arts.  The governments limitations on funding for arts and humanities funding will effect many universities, thousands of students and the industries as a whole.  I am currently studying MA Fashion and Lifestyle Promotion at UCLAN, extending my knowledge from my BA (Hons) Fashion and Brand Promotion with Journalism, for which I gained a first.  There has always been an issue with funding but according to my tutor the only reason the creative departments are managing is because we are part of a larger university that also teaches subjects the government will fund such as sciences.

What is strange about this is that fashion is an extremely profitable industry.  It is worth £21 billion in the UK alone and is our 15th largest industry according to Fashion United, similar in size to the food/beverage services and telecommunications industries and bigger than the wholesale and retail of automotives, sports activities, chemical manufacture and advertising/video sectors".  Why aren't we investing in fashion and other creative industries when they are great for our country not just in economical terms but because of the culture they add.

Fashion is innovative and the UK has some of the best fashion colleges and universities, whose graduates are driving its future.  So how can this continue with a lack of arts funding?  It has been acknowledged by many newspapers, such as The Guardian, that this will hit those from lower income families especially as solely arts based universities will need to rethink fees and supplementary costs.  So how will universities continue to be fair to all students?  And how will graduates get noticed when they leave?

Graduate Fashion Week was a great opportunity for me, I won the Lyle and Scott Strategic Marketing Award and got lots of opportunities to meet mentors as well as a fantastic win to put on my CV.  Whilst Graduate Fashion Week and portfolio websites claim to be fantastic there is still an issue with costs.  Universities are wondering if they can afford a stand/a catwalk at Graduate Fashion Week and graduates simply can't afford to join portfolio websites when there is such a slim chance anyone will see them.

Lyle and Scott Strategic Marketing Award 2009, Image from GFW Website

I have been considering creating a magazine as part of my MA to highlight the brilliant and conceptual work that can come from unknown creatives in the worlds of music, art, fashion, architecture and graphics.  Trends and industry articles would be supplemented by imagery created by new talent and additional elements would profile successful people within the industry and offer exhibitions etc that could further inspire.  I think it would be great for students and people within industry alike, giving them a chance to see what was already out there, inspiring them to make the most of themselves and their businesses. What do you think?

Calum Harvey: Not Just A Label

Calum Harvery is a good bloke.  Not only does he regale me with amusing stories, delays getting back to his studies to ensure that I get back to the Midlands when the Tube decides to be rubbish but he also gets drunk with me at inappropriate moments.  These moments are very sporadic, we don't see each other anywhere near as much as I'd like, but if someone will sit outside a bar wearing an oversized jumper, rescued in a recycling mission, that has a black bin bag fused to the front all in the name of experimentation then you know they're special.

And he is.  So special Not Just a Label have featured him on their front page.  He moves randomly around the page but he's there.  Check it out because his clothes are pretty good too.  He's another Graduate Fashion Week 2009 winner, nabbing himself the Textiles Award.  Awwww.  Shame people have now taken our crowns.  Read the amusing tale from our Graduate Fashion Week Winners Reception for more tales of Calum.

And Calum if you read this yes I am rubbish at keeping in touch even when I start the communication.  I am messaging you back in just a moment.

Master of Fashion?

I had a plan.  I was going to graduate, work as a fantastical fashion person for 2-5 years and then maybe do an MA/MBA...dependent on where I was and what I fancied.  Well...I am not a fantastical fashion person.

I am a person that gets mad at work, despises the gossip, gets paid less than the others and then ends up crying.  Not because I'm upset...because I'm frustrated.  Thanks to Graduate Fashion Week I have contacts at company's from Burberry to ASOS to pester for work experience but can I do it? NO! Why I hear you ask? Because I live in the Midlands and not in the centre of the fashion universe: London.

So here are my thoughts...maybe I should just buck up my ideas and change the plan around a bit.  Move to London, do an MA and get work experience alongside it.  THEN come out of university once and for alla nd become a fantastical fashion person with lots of experience rather than no experience.

I am very indecisive when it comes to my own life.  (Believe me I would plan your whole life for you though if you asked me.)  Right now I am scouring university websites, bank websites and careers websites in an attempt to make some kind of a decision.  Not really making much headway.  I don't even know whether it'd be clever to focus on fashion promotion or to broaden my horizons and do something more general.

Everyone I speak to says it's a decision only I can make.  Bugger. That's what I was dreading.  Suggestions on a postcard.

Wonderful, knowledgable, fashionable people

I had another GFW day of meetings yesterday.  I met with Erin Mullaney, Buying Director at Browns, along with Jemma Dyas, Buyer for Browns Focus and then moved on to a meeting with Fred Uribe at Burberry.

When I left I was feeling very poorly (I have been rather ill and that has damaged my spirit slightly....I didn't even think I'd make it to London) and unsure about myself.  I even went as far to tell a friend I was having an identity crisis.  An Identity Crisis.  Slightly dramatic?  Me?  No!  Never!  Well anyway...my future career is between buying and marketing.  I keep swinging to buying because that's more accessible in terms of graduate schemes.  Essentially though marketing was the reason I went to university.  I went in order to learn how to promote brands.  Hence getting a BA in Fashion and Brand Promotion.

Erin and Jemma wooed me with stories of emotional catwalk shows, this emotional response you get to clothes, amazing parties, people, models, designers...general amazing things that happen if you do well within buying.  Fred on the otherhand blew me away with knowledge.  He appealed to my logical side, the side that loves brands and how they tick...the side that strategically plans every detail of what could make a business good from a martketing point of view.

From branding to digital media he chatted away and I just sat there and soaked it all in.  In fact, I desperately clutched my diary and a pen to make notes whilst all the others just sat and looked at him.  Call me silly, an overachiever, whatever...but I didn't want to forget anything I might need in the future.  They could, of course, have just been blown away with his charm.  The man could charm the arse off anyone I'm pretty sure of that.  We all walked out and said: "Wow."

Needless to say, marketing is at the forefront of my mind once more and so I am desperately trying to find local businesses that will give me work experience.  As much as I would love to swan off to London, stay in a hotel and do an unpaid placement it's just not going to happen.  I will find my place though.  Eventually.  In the meantime I dream of having Fred's job in ten years time and referring to the next Christopher Bailey by their first name only.  "Well Chris came in and pretty much designed the way the interior of Horseferry House would work..."

Oh and Horseferry House, Burberry's London HQ, is amazing!!  Seven floors of pure, unquestionable amazement.  I really wish I'd been there when it was raining to hear it bang of the dual ceiling and watch it from the open central area.  "I think this building was once an MI5 building."  Oh really Fred...wow.  Again.  Wow.

Burberry's Horseferry House

Inspiration

Inspiration is the source of all creativity in my mind.  Something sparks/clicks/pops in you head, triggered by a sense.  You see something in a magazine, you read something in a book, your friend tells you a story... The other day someone told me my blog had kind of inspired them to write their own.  Kind of or not I though this was lovely.  It did make me wonder however where my sources of inspiration have disappeared.

Whilst at university I was led by trend books, my tutors, my course peers.  Now I have friends that mostly have no knowledge of fashion...though one of them said the other day that we call subconsicously walk north westerly and in an area (not actually north west compass wise) and that's why fashion stores are laid out how they are.  He seemed baffled I didn't know this...I assured him I did not study retail.

Anyway...the point of the story is that I miss that kind of creative inspiration.  I need Viewpoint in my life...in particular this is what I miss...for reasons like this:

Long live Future Lab...no wonder I was so stressed when I was interviewed by Christopher Sanderson (Future Lab's co founder) at Graduate Fashion Week for the Strategic Marketing award.  I have other images, many others, but these in particular give across a current mood of mine.  Whimsical, wishful, ethereal...now I just need a project to focus these.  Suggestions on a postcard.

I'm employed...wooo hooo

This is obviously a regular topic of mine but it is one that currently seems to baffle everyone.  A friend of mine wrote as her Facebook status the other day: "I'm employed!!! Wooo hooo!! :)"  Everyone that read this was of course over the moon and asked what job in the police she had got....as this was her aim.  Rather than replying that she had got Christmas work in a department store she merely said she had only got a temporary post and was still pursuing the police full time.

Now, she should not be ashamed of something she was so excited about.  Indeed, at the moment having any kind of job is marvellous.  People don't seem to understand that though.  Graduates feel they have almost failed, despite not actually standing a chance, whilst non-graduates feel sympathy for those poor 'young ones' wasting the talents that have got them into so much debt.

I can't lie, sometimes I wonder why I am not doing what I dreamt of.  Or in fact why what I dreamt of doesn't necesarily seem like the right thing for me any more.  When in the midst of those dark moments I have a little moto "at least I'm employed".  Doesn't sound like much but hundreds of gradutes have gone back to bar jobs, work in Topshop/River Island/Debenhams or do as I have and relish an opportunity thrown out by family/friends/acquaintances.  After all, it's better than nothing.

I do have something to dream about though...I am going to meet Peter Ruis from John Lewis and Fred Uribe-Mosquera from Burberry next month.  God bless Graduate Fashion Week.  After all, blogs don't pay the rent...not even Sophie Power's amazing Trendspiration.  She was invited to London Fashion Week as a guest of Canon and could only make one day as she had to work...typical!

Graduate Fashion Week Winners Reception

I have been absent for a few days because I decided to grace London with my presence.  Wednesday night I headed to the Graduate Fashion Week winners reception, which turned out to be an amazing experience.  I didn't expect to have Orla Kiely come over to introduce herself but I am so glad she did because I don't think she could have been nicer.  If I look, act and dress like she does when I'm her age I'll be happy.  There's something spectacular about her, all elegance and grace...two things I don't really have as I am so clumsy its unbelievable.

Orla Kiely in her home in London

Image taken from The Independent online

Believe me though, speaking to all these important people is not as easy as it seems.  Calum Harvey, winner of the Textiles Award, had a conversation with Katie Greenyer of the Pentland Group that went something like this:

Calum: I love your glasses, where are they from?
Katie: Red or Dead.
Calum: Oh, I have some Red or Dead glasses.  They're amazing aren't they?
Katie: Well, I am Red or Dead.
Calum: I've just embarassed myself haven't I.
Katie: Yes you have.

Needless to say Calum was embarassed, however, simply starting our careers it is simply impossible for us to know everything about every person we will meet.  Ok, so we did have prior knowledge as to who we were to meet, however, each of us merely brushed up on those we thought we could learn most from.  It seems that was our mistake, because each of the mentors has so much more to offer than advice on what they are labelled with.  Katie Greenyer, for instance, does a lot more than work in "Manufacturing" as the Graduate Fashion Week organisers told us.  Looks like you can't judge a person by their title, rather like you can't judge a book by it's cover.

I also believe that without experience it is hard for us to know where we want to be in 10 years time.  Katie Greenyer managed to worry me when she told me I should know exactly which segment I should want to work in (high street, luxury etc) because the choices I make now will lead my potential into the future.  Apparently in the luxury sector, for instance, they are unlikely to employ someone from the high street level.  Following this ignored me and spoke to Charlotte Webb, winner of the Media and Communication Award, who was stood next to me at the time.  Guess I'm not worth speaking to until I have sorted where I want to be.  So, any ideas?  I'm rather at a loss.