Barneys Girl's Internship I

Phew~ I'm back from a weekend of fun fun fun!! And now I can finally look back at my internship with fondness and fun. So I worked at the design development department of a local fashion brand, which also have stores across Asia and in Europe. In fact, I do believe they plan to be opening a counter at Harrods near Whistle's soo. So a really exciting place indeed!

And I've learnt SO much about the fashion designing industry too! Who'd have thought that making clothes is such a looooong and tiresome process??? The start of a season takes place a year ahead. Right now, fashion houses would be working on the fall/winter 06 collections, just when we're stepping into the FW 05 collections. And to keep ahead of time, there would be fashion "add ons" closer to the season to incorporate latest trends. So first, designers and their team go to fabric shows in Italy and France, like MODA IN and Premier Vision in September, to collect samples to be considered for their future collections. They then decide what fabrics they want to use and draw designs using them. These designs are then carefully considered and the selected few would go on to be made into "prototypes" (or the first version of the product), a few yards of that fabric would be ordered for this purpose. Once the prototypes are made, models then present it to the designers and future buyers. In these presentations, buyers would select items they would buy and how much they would buy. The clothes selected are then further developed by the designers through many, many rounds of fitting and adjusting (the prototypes are far from being perfect). And usually 3 more versions of the prototype would be needed before the final product is ready for mass production. And every little detail needs to be perfect, down to the size of the button!!

So yes. This really makes one appreciate the effort and vision (I would never be able to imagine the clothes a piece of fabric can be without seeing the clothes first) it takes to actually make all the clothes we see in the stores!