How to Land an Internship in the Fashion Industry

Sometimes when I'm in my  suburban  home town, I pretend to be something like a local celebrity to these high school and middle school girls. I tell them all sorts of stories about dreams and ambition  yet I....I ain't shit!

There will always be someone who one ups you in life, there always will be bridges to burn, but the one thing I tell girls all the time "Keep going, keep doing, and never look back."

Trust me, I've burned a bridge or two (or 25) but I'm young, fresh out of high school and pushing myself beyond the boundary that defines what is a successful person.

Everyone's  definition of success is quite different. My  definition  of success is financial freedom (and liberation from my parent's grasp). In order to achieve the latter, I need to be able to work in a field that I love. There are many ways to go about it.

I love fashion and social media. Its extremely hard to break into the fashion world. Social media however---> blog, camera, brain-- and you're done.

So I combined the two and searched for some work in there. The thing was I  did a few campaigns some odd years ago and not much else I could run with. I wasn't  financially  capable to really participate in an internship in high school, even though I was offered a few. 

Right after high school, my friend introduced me to some work with a fashion show producer. After that I did two retail jobs and from there I was working in and out of the industry through various connections I built on the way. Come  September  I packed that all into my resume and I applied to a lot of places.

The one who replies back first, is usually the one I stick to. That's been my way of getting every job I've gotten so far. I usually do well on the interview process. 

Key Things to Getting an Internship

1. Apply, Apply, and Apply again: I think I filled out about 120 applications for internships in a 2 or 3 day span. My current internship replied back to me within an hour, thats how I knew they were the one. It can be a good or a bad thing.
2. Networking: I had a 30 year old retail manager that couldn't find a job in her field after college. She didn't have any connections and had only 1 internship. If you want a job once you graduate, then you need some serious networking skills.

Give 200% to everything you do and you should be fine. 

You should know however, before you can break into the fashion industry, you have to do a lot of work for free. Even then, it's hard to break in, and stay in. I didn't quite find that a problem with PR internships that weren't directly in the fashion world. Your best bet, to skip a few innneccesaries, do an unpaid internship in fashion and do a related paid internship. Because I work at the pace, I do now, I aim to have an entry level job by the time I have my associates and move on to something big by the time I graduate.

How to ace the interview:

I can only give very general advice on this because I never had been turned down because of a bad interview. I just know that the best thing to do is be yourself yet be the image they want. Never lie or anything but if you know you aren't what they are looking in their target audience then you might want to pick up an acting book or two.  

Key things is to be modest stylish. Show some style and show some restraint. Bring out the Devil Wears Prada's Andrea Sach's smarty attitude but don't forget who you are.

Keeping the Job???

Internships aren't as  glamorous  as they are made to seem. It often or not, a lot of hard work. Even the simplest task seems to kick you down. I know for fact, schooling full time, working full time and part time internship was kicking my ass every day. My blog was vacant for too long!!

Most of the time you might not being doing any work towards your field. Sometimes you will be doing minor work. Just make sure you keep a balance of everything that needs to done and put all effort possible towards it.

I thinks that all I can say towards interning in the fashion industry. The industry is quite different between the creative side and the business side so I know it's a bit vague but that all you really need to know towards getting and keeping an internship.

So if I have any more advice, I will update this post! I hope you enjoyed this post!