12 Powerful Tips for Landing Your Dream Fashion Job
© 2016 Savannah College of Art and Design1/6Savannah, Georgia may seem like a strange place for fashion insiders to converge. Yet last week, heavy-hitters like New York Fashion Week creator Fern Mallis, Juicy Couture and Pam & Gela founders Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor, Public School designers Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne, and Calvin Klein—who needs no introduction—descended upon the southern town and caused quite a stir. The reason for their visit? To participate in the 11th annual SCADstyle speaker series hosted by the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Spanning over four days, SCADstyle organizes conversations between successful designers, editors, and other industry heads where they share their experiences rising through the ranks of the fashion world. This year’s guests doled out invaluable advice for anyone hoping to follow in their footsteps, and it was way too good not to share. Read on for the best pearls of wisdom from each esteemed guest, and get one step closer to making your own dreams come true.
Getty Images2/6Calvin Klein
“Learn to trust your instincts. Exude confidence. Believe and trust in what your emotions are telling you. Because if you don’t, no one else will. Convince people that you know what you’re doing.”
“I tell all students to first work for a company that they respect and can learn from. I made a lot of mistakes when I was starting out.”
“Friends are important. People will do things for you because they like you and want to see you succeed.”
© 2016 Savannah College of Art and Design3/6Fern Mallis
“Be nice because there are a lot of other people you will be competing with who have a lot of talent. Being nice will get you further.”
© 2016 Savannah College of Art and Design4/6Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor, Juicy Couture and Pam & Gela founders
“If you’re starting a business, it’s always good to start small in a niche market. By doing that, we learned everything. We learned about shipping, manufacturing, and designing.” –Gela
“Do what you love. Find your passion. Make working fun and it won’t feel like a job. “ –Pamela
“Anything you do has to be authentic.” –Gela
“For us, building our brand and starting our business was always autobiographical. We would make what we wanted to wear and what we were obsessed with.” –Pamela
2015 Getty Images5/6Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne, Public School designers
“Lose all of the preconceptions you have about what the fashion industry is, or should be like when you’re starting off. Start completely fresh and talk to as many people as you can. Friends, contemporaries, mentors, people in the business—really get a sense of everything that’s going on in the industry.” –Dao-Yi
“Don’t be burdened or succumb to what everyone else—like retailers or the industry—wants you to do. Set your own pace.” –Dao-Yi
“If you love what you’re doing and have a point of view and a voice that’s saying what no one else is saying, then what you’re doing is all worth it.” –Dao-Yi
“Everything that you’ve heard about all the hard work that goes into making it in this industry is very, very, very true.” -Maxwell
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