In Fashion Part 9

You need to be relaxed enough that you can relate your pa.s.sion and your good att.i.tude toward work. Be prepared to talk about what you want to learn and what your goals are for the internship. Be specific. Make a mental list of these things beforehand so that you are prepared. A designer is looking for someone who is friendly and positive, who will pick up things easily and be positive about learning. Try to couch your comments about school and other work experiences in positive terms. Starting every sentence with "I hate it when ..." won't help you make a positive impression.

How to Prepare for the Interview

Portfolio. Most art and design schools have cla.s.ses to teach you how to prepare and present your portfolio. The irony is that many of these cla.s.ses fall into a student's last year of studies, long after you are expected to interview for an internship. Start building your portfolio early. "I don't expect intern candidates to have wonderful portfolios," says Ruth Ann Stanley. "I want to see that they are trying to put it together in a professional way and that they are having fun with it."

Big picture. Take thirty minutes to research the company on your computer. Know the names of its different businesses and labels as well as the names of its top executives and designers. Go and see stores where the label is sold. Take notes on the type of people or personalities who wear the label and who would be considered its biggest compet.i.tion.

How to a.s.semble Your First Design Portfolio

According to modern design school convention, portfolios can be presented either on a candidate's laptop or in a large black book filled with acetate covered pages. Most interviewers prefer the old-fashioned physical portfolio because they like to see the actual lines of ill.u.s.trations and the weights and textures of fabrics, and they like to be able to flip through pages at their own pace. That makes sense since fashion people are tactile-it's all about touch.

ART SPEAK.

So you don't have to ask.

FLAT: A drawing or design that represents how a garment will be cut from "flat" fabric.

CROQUIS: A quick drawing of a figure or a design, made with the intent of communicating the big picture. Also called a "rough," the ill.u.s.trator will often use it to help create a subsequent, more detailed work. Fashion ill.u.s.trators typically produce a series of croquis to show an art director, after which the two will discuss how the final ill.u.s.tration would best work. The word croquis comes from the French verb croquer, which means "to sketch."

MAQUETTE: A rough representation or small-scale version of an unfinished work. The term is used in architecture, set design, and magazines where a "maquette" is a "dummy" of the final issue of the publication. This maquette is painstakingly created by hand in the art department. Each page of editorial (with final images and copy) and advertising is spray-mounted into a white "book" and given to the editor in chief and the publisher to review and make last-minute changes. See the scene in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada when the Anne Hathaway character brings the maquette to the home of the imperious Miranda Priestly.

Since I grew up in the editorial world of portfolios (where my black book holds my most recent cover stories, followed by favorite tear sheets of other feature stories I've written, and so on), I asked around Seventh Avenue to find out who possessed a most outstanding design portfolio. Troy Sanford (currently designing at Ann Taylor) was a name I heard repeatedly, so I pinned the guy down to share his secrets.

Over a martini ("dry and dirty, with extra olives"), Troy, a tall, elegant Nebraska native (blond and handsome like a young Halston), showed me his seemingly endless output of amazing sketches and then walked me through the elements of his great design portfolio.

HOW TO MAKE INSPIRED INSPIRATION PAGES.

Inspiration pages = evidence of conceptual thinking = the difference between a drafter and a designer = the difference between getting the designer job or spec room job.

Yes, your ill.u.s.tration skills are paramount. But a strong portfolio strikes a balance between your sketches and the thought that inspired those sketches, or your inspiration pages. The elements of an inspiration page must be interesting, diverse, and original: A piece of lace, a ribbon, a matchbook cover, an iconic photograph, a quote, a flower petal, a pebble, a sh.e.l.l, or a collage of many of these elements, the print of a poem, canvas, sculpture that moves you.

The living world around you. For example, an entire collection could pivot on the concept of fireflies.

Allow a highly evocative city, like Paris, Prague, or St. Petersburg, or a particular highly evocative place, like Nantucket, the Swiss Alps, or Palm Springs, to be your muse.

Express your collection via architecture: A picture of a steel and concrete building might inspire a collection of neutral colors in clean shapes.

Dip into something very personal, like "I found this Moroccan tile when I was on vacation. The colors were so amazing I wanted to base my collection on that."

Use provocative swipe (literally means "swiped" or stolen, like a tear sheet out of a magazine) of an incredible forest scene that serves as inspiration for a fall collection of mossy knits that look like they have little twigs in them.

BEST AND BRIGHTEST AT SKETCHING AND ILl.u.s.tRATION.

Seek out and savor line drawings from this group of designers. Note the extent to which what they create on paper (even in their earliest work) comes alive in fabric. And, if you can get your hands on any: The value of Saint Laurent and Valentino sketches will only go up.

Oscar de la Renta Christian Lacroix Karl Lagerfeld Isaac Mizrahi Valentino Yves Saint Laurent Page 1. Your resume. Troy's showed that he started school in Chicago at the School of the Art Inst.i.tute of Chicago to save money so that he could transfer to Parsons School of Design in New York to earn his BFA. I also see that Troy sketched for DKNY and CK while still in school and interned at Michael Kors. He has had his own decorative T-shirt business, Little White Lines, worked with Parsons cla.s.smate Alicia Bell in the creation of her shirt line (www.aliciabell.com), and has held design posts at Polo Ralph Lauren and Gap in women's wear.

Pages 2 to 3. Inspiration pages. These pages are based on a theme (a country, an adventure, a literary movement, an architectural style, a color, an artist-see box above) and can include sc.r.a.ps of fabric and/or current runway shots, as well as architectural drawings, or art or nature drawings that relate to the theme. These pages should showcase your unique creativity.

Pages 4 to 5, 6 to 7, 8 to 9, and 10 to 11. Spreads of the collection that you "designed" based on your inspiration.

Troy did four groups of ill.u.s.trations of six models on each spread (twenty-four total looks). His sketches are beautiful, amazingly precise and distinct. He presented his looks so that one design followed naturally from the last with a very strong commercial logic. Other people do three to four groups of designs with ten looks in each.

What you choose to design should reflect what you'd like to design or, at least, the design job you're going after. If you want a job doing dresses, design dresses. If it's a jeans line, do jeans. If it's more general, like sportswear, you need to cover all the basic elements, including a dress or two.

HOT TOPIC: ECO-COOL.

Green chic. Stella McCartney took the stand early as the most self-consciously green designer on the planet. Regardless of the "trendiness" of the green movement, every designer is being judged increasingly by how environmentally correct his or her materials and manufacturing processes are. This is not going away.

Bike lane. Designing cool clothes for riding your bike to work is definitely a category of the future. Workplaces providing showers for biking staffers seems to be a key next step.

Seasonality is important. If you go into Oscar de la Renta with spring sketches when his entire organization is focused on fall, you'll look out-of-sync.

Pages 12 to 13. Here, Troy presented a condensed look at his process from the inspiration for a Ralph Lauren blouse from a vintage lace dress, then swatches of fabrics he found and hand painted. The rough ill.u.s.trations, or croquis, of his design, are alongside the template or final drawing. He then showed the "flat" version of the shirt (necessary for patternmaking) and the actual "specs" that he provided production for the manufacturing of it.

Design Internship Crib Sheet

PREREQUISITES FOR DESIGN INTERNSHIPS.

Technical skills like patternmaking and sewing Artistic skills like drawing and ill.u.s.tration Computer skills like knowing the most current computer-a.s.sisted design (CAD) software Note: If the above sounds like a foreign language, you might want to consider other departments like public relations, merchandising, or sales.

Interview Outfit

You need to wear a current season dress or outfit. If you need to buy something just to wear to the interview, do so! At places like Zara and H&M, you don't have to spend a lot of money to look current. Designers notice everything. Especially your shoes!!! If they aren't current season, make sure they are freshly polished and newly heeled.

Exude

Effervescence, good energy, a positive att.i.tude.

Life Is the Interview

Sometimes it happens like this: "I met this girl on the E train," recalls Ruth Ann Stanley. "She was showing her portfolio to her friend. I had a quick look at the book and told her that she was really talented. I gave her my card and now she is interning for us."

HOT JOBS: ACCESSORIES DESIGN.

NEWS FLASH: The lipstick index has just been replaced by the shoe index. Traditionally, when times were tough, women bought lipstick instead of clothing. Today, it seems, women are buying shoes. Indeed, both shoes and bags are hot categories today and offer fashion brands high profit margins and good street creds as well as giving consumers maximum satisfaction. In today's tough economy, these are the last things women are likely to give up.

THE MOST GLAMOROUS, NONPAYING "JOBS"

FASHION ICON.

This isn't a job you can apply or study for, nor is it one you can inherit or purchase. To be an icon is to stand apart from all others in society with your own unique, alluring, and inspiring vision of yourself. It is to be outlandish, as Coco Chanel was when she dressed as a man, and liberating, as she was when she eliminated corsets and foundations from her designs, freeing women from a dressing tyranny that's hard for modern women to fathom. It is to be chic, as Audrey Hepburn was in life and in her, ahem, iconic roles as Jo Stockton in Funny Face (1957) and Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961).

Today's top modern icon is First Lady Mich.e.l.le Obama, whose tall athletic frame and modern comfortable vision of dressing is inspiring women across the world and, specifically, U.S.-based designers of diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Icon Examples Pop culture: Lady Gaga, Madonna, Blondie, Nico, Marianne Faithfull Movie stars: Audrey Hepburn, Kate Hepburn Supermodels: Twiggy, Veruschka, Kate Moss Royalty: Princess Grace, Princess Diana Presidential: Jackie Kennedy Ona.s.sis, who epitomized the ladylike dressing of the early 1960s and also the chic of the 1970s Fashionistas: Divas like Carmel Snow, Diana Vreeland, and Coco Chanel; Georgiana the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire Qualifications: An icon must possess a highly public role in society but exist above the commercial and day-to-day workings of the fashion world. Sources of income are born or married into or earned independently from the world of fashion.

Tenacity + If You're Not in NYC, Get to NYC

"This guy had come from Texas and just showed up at my company one day," says my HR friend. "He introduced himself to the receptionist, presenting himself in a really polite way. He knew enough to say that he wanted to meet the design director. She happened to be around and had enough time to sit down to speak with him. He asked to intern for three months; she said yes on the spot. After that, he got a job with us and has done brilliantly."

MUSE.

A muse is a living person who on a regular basis inspires, leads, and animates and epitomizes everything a designer stands for or wants to be. Some designers have illusory muses, their idealized concept of a woman. Some designers switch muses as often as they change their socks or create a new collection. Muse, these days, is an overused word, but the role of the muse in fashion is enormous and elusive. Definitely not a job you'll see listed in WWD.

Some icons started out as muses, like Jackie Kennedy for Oleg Ca.s.sini, Audrey Hepburn for Hubert de Givenchy, Princess Diana for Catherine Walker. Among the pure muses is Loulou de la Falaise, who worked with Yves Saint Laurent. She supposedly inspired a tuxedo for women, le smoking, with see-through blouses and collaborated with the designer until his death. The late Isabella Blow played the muse to Irish hatmaker Philip Treacy and to English designer Alexander McQueen. Similarly, the late Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy once played this role for Narciso Rodriguez, who famously made her wedding dress.

Living, breathing muses include (the salaried) Lady Amanda Harlech, first for John Galliano for twelve years before joining Chanel where she's been now for nearly as long. Film director Sofia Coppola and model Kate Moss have been (unsalaried) sources of inspiration for Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein, respectively.

SOCIALITE.

With his famous "swans"-Babe Paley, Marella Agnelli, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, Pamela Churchill Harriman, Slim Keith, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Lee Radziwill-Truman Capote etched the concept of a socialite onto the modern consciousness. Today one thinks of It Girls like Tinsley Mortimer, Tatiana Santo Domingo, Daphne Guinness, Charlotte Casiraghi, and Margherita Missoni. In ready-to-wear, a socialite is a living, breathing wearer (buys and borrows); in couture, she is a client (one who buys). See the latest socialites on the party pages of WWD and Vogue.

Once You Snag Your Design Internship

Don't be shy. You need to learn how to express your opinions and your own style and talents. It's about relaxing into being yourself. You have to learn to become part of a team. At the same time it's about being you and not being afraid.

How to Be

Proactive. Have a big sense of urgency.

HOT JOBS: REPURPOSED FASHION.

We've just exited an era of conspicuous consumption and should all now have learned about our responsibilities to reduce our carbon footprints on this planet. This plays into the vague, but totally appealing, notion of reworking vintage jewelry, clothing, and bags in witty, new, and fresh ways. I've only seen a few, small successful attempts at this concept-a shop in SoHo, Flying A, that turned old Lacoste polo shirts into miniskirts-and a line of bags made from vinyl singles from the 1960s.