Reality of Fashion Shows: It's not always glitz and glamour

...especially for the organisers! I've learnt by now that fashion shows do not happen overnight and are definitely not a stroll in the park to organise and run. Seeing all the movies and how they are portrayed, I always thought that you yourself, being one of the organisers, would feel glamorous and fabulous doing it. But I couldn't be more wrong. By the time the event started and the models were strutting down the runway, we were running around like headless chickens without having the time to properly get ready, sore feet from standing and running around the whole day and the previous day trying to get everything done and ready.

Regardless, it was definitely a fun and amazing experience and I got first hand experience on what it is like to be behind the scenes of a fashion show.  Furthermore, this experience made me appreciate and realise even more the importance of teamwork. Fashion shows are definitely not and cannot be a one woman/man show and you would need a great team and outstanding communication between them for events like these to be successful. Being part of the organising team means you do it all (especially since this was a fashion show for a cause by a not-for-profit organisation) - may it be getting down and dirty and pulling weeds out at the venue, sweeping floors, getting spray paint all over you as you create props, sending 600 emails and getting only a few replies, calling businesses and companies for sponsorship, and let's not forget the countless rejections. Although I only joined this team one month before the event (I can't believe it's been a month already), I have learnt a lot of things from them, which I am now using and applying in another internship that I am undertaking. Though the process of organising and running events like these are exhausting and require a lot of time and effort, it was definitely a rewarding experience and one that I will never forget.

Walk your Talk

Hello boys and girls,

How are we all? How are your Internships going? Was I the only one who struggled to find a placement or did you have difficulties as well?

I was lucky enough to get an internship at Colosoul Group Inc. As this is a not-for-profit organisation, most workers are volunteers. I was really amazed as I heard about the story behind this organisation and how it came about. Tricia Rey (the CEO) realising the struggle and difficulties the youth were having when it came to finding experience and internship in the media and arts industry started this organisation and opened her doors to hundred of youths guiding, encouraging and empowering them to the pathway that suits them best. As a person who is passionate about helping others and highly interested in this industry, I thought this to be the perfect place for me to do my internship and gain valuable lessons and experience.

I walked into a bustling office for my first day of Internship and was assigned into the WA Born Team. It is such an exciting time for me to be joining the team as the team is organising a fashion event for a cause - the event is going to showcase the emerging WA fashion scene and our newly established designers. A fashionable story will be told through the creative and innovative designs whilst bringing awareness to Organ Donation and Transplant Foundation of WA, with proceeds going to the foundation. It's exciting times and there are still a lot of things to be done.

I’ve titled this post “Walk your Talk”, not only because we are in the midst of organising a fashion show, but because we have also been doing a lot of walking and talking to businesses to promote and to ask for sponsorships and/or donations. It’s crazy days and there are still a lot of things to be done, but I’m having so much fun. They say not to mix business with pleasure, but business can also be pleasurable and enjoyable.

I’m really enjoying my Public Relations Internship and I’m looking forward for more.....but hopefully with less walking.

On the side of interning...

On the side of SWEvents I managed to pick up a shift for the Urban Couture fashion show during the Joondalup Festival.

This was an event I picked up through working with Kelly Price at SWEvents.  Kelly is a freelance events coordinator, who was hired by Shani to help out with the Wesfarmers Concert and was also employed by City of Joondalup to coordinate the fashion shows of the festival.

The fashion shows ran over four weekends, and Kelly asked me if I’d like to come and help out on one of the shows over the last weekend.

Our main concern with these shows was a lack of knowledge about them. It was noticed that Joondalup didn’t really produce much in the lead up to the show, so one of the first issues I had to tackle was public awareness.  Easy considering all you had to do was walk up to people and hand out flyers. 

The second issue we faced was the weather.  If the rain came the show was cancelled, no contingency planning needed as we couldn’t bring in any new marquees into the already set up festival, and each show had already been designated to a specific location, there were no alternative spaces for the show to take place.

In the case of the day I was working, the first show managed to avoid any extreme weather.  The second was hit with heavy rain and as such the show was cancelled. The team was able to pull together a quick photo shoot with no spectators but able to use for the festival and for Urban Couture.

In contrast to working with SWEvents on large corporate events, it was interesting to see the difference to working with a smaller freelance event manager. 

I noticed a lack of tasks for volunteers at the fashion show, obviously due to skill management and knowing that volunteers are just that and cannot be expected to have any knowledge of event operations.  Having said that I definitely enjoy my responsibility load with Shani and value how she trusts me to take on my daily tasks and produce work at the end of each day.  The experience proved to myself that I am ready to handle a more involved position, rather than the more simple tasks volunteers are taken on for.

Fashion was something that I was interested in making a career from, but after my experience (or lack of) for Joondalup festival the idea of it has been made slightly different.  It would be more interesting to be a part of the planning process like I have been doing with SWEvents to be able to understand and feel apart of the event.

Grace Carpenter

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SWEvents