Interning at London Fashion Week Daily Diary

London Fashion Week, the notoriously busy time on every fashion elite and design enthusiast’s calendar. You can walk just about anywhere around Covent Garden and be bombarded with promo guys and girls ushering bottles of water, leaflets and goody bags into your hands, hoping to attract buyers and press to the shows that await.

Caught up in the spirit of Fashion Week, I decided to bulk up my C.V a bit by interning for Vauxhall Fashion Scout whilst getting an insiders view of the preparation involved in producing a show.

Arriving into London on the Thursday morning, everything seemed surprisingly calm… perhaps this is due to not having my caffeine fix for the day yet, it was only 8.30am! I promptly made my way to my hotel, leaving my suitcase before running back to the tube to head to Freemasons Hall in Covent Garden to start my first day of the internship.

Little did I know, the first problem was just around the corner, how to actually get into the building? I saw a small collective of people who appeared to be waiting just around the corner of the building, so headed over in the hope they would be interning as well and were just as lost as I was.
Luckily, my judgement was right and we were swiftly met by a representative from Fashion Scout who led us inside the grand building.

The floors were tiled in a mosaic fashion, with marble staircases sloping in all directions. It truly looked like a scene from a movie, so luxurious and an utterly gorgeous venue to hold a fashion show. Making my way down the corridor, I spotted a huge line of other interns waiting outside a grand hall with massive wooden doors – this is where we were to receive our briefing for the week, and were split into teams of Front of House and Backstage interns.

I was extremely relieved to be allocated to the Front of House, as many horror stories of rude stylists and designers has tainted my view of becoming a dresser for the models. As the week progressed though, I learnt that this was not the case for every show… I guess there are just a few bad apples?

The first day was basically a short tour of the building, followed by moving stacks of boxes to different locations around the building and preparing the catwalk and goody bags for the busy Friday ahead.

Friday 19th February 2010

Got to Fashion scout at 12.00, late for fashion week I thought, but I’m not complaining! Was then assigned to direct visitors around the maze of a building, before organising the foyer and catwalk area for the approaching David Koma show. Rumours were that Hilary Alexander was to be in attendance, so when I saw her take her place on the front row in her blood red kimono tunic I was elated. Susie Lau from Style Bubble was also present.

The show was incredible! We only just packed everyone into the hall, and with everyone scrambling to get a peek at the high profile collection I was quite glad I could just stand back and watch from the sidelines. Zigzag designs were prominent features of the collection, which fused rather well with quite neutral tones of fawns and blacks. Also Koma’s use of what appeared to be zip teeth as detailing on cocktail dresses was pure genius. If I could afford, I would be snapping up one of these dresses within minutes, but sadly a student loan doesn’t tend to stretch that far.


Image courtesy of Asos.

The final highlight for the day has to be the Ones to Watch show, featuring 4 up-and-coming designers: Eudon Choi, David Longshawe, ASKH, and Florencia Kozuch. The majority of the buzz centered around Kozuch’s collection of loop knit sweaters teamed with wide brimmed parson’s hats, with people raving about the collection for much of the week!


Image courtesy of Vauxhall Fashion Scout.

Daily Rumours:

Nicola Roberts and Rachel Stevens at Body AMR.
Katy Perry rumoured to show…didn’t attend so designer took her seat and said ‘Oh well, her loss!’