TPFF 15

It doesn’t get much bigger than this event for the fashion industry in Perth. The Telstra Perth Fashion Festival 2015 (TPFF) was one of the many highlights I experienced through my internship.

Having never participated in TPFF before or worked with a designer, I was extremely intimidated leading up to the event, but eager to learn as much as I could.

While my role with Steph Audino for TPFF 2015 wasn’t revolved around Public Relations (although leading up to the event there was media liaising in regards to photo shoots and news articles), it was to help Steph in anyway I could and learn as much about the fashion industry as I could to see if it is an industry I wanted to be apart of.

The lead up to the night was all about organising the event as best we could.

As a team we:

• ·      Went to model castings
• ·      Decided the line up for the outfits
• ·      Went to model fittings
• ·      Finalised shoes, steaming etc.
• ·      Dressed the models for dress rehearsal 

On the night of the show I was apart of the back of house (BOH) team for the Steph Audino show on closing night. And BOH was chaotic, stinking hot and confined, yet it was exhilarating, fast paced and so much fun.

Words cannot describe the atmosphere backstage, it was electrifying and adrenaline pumping. Dressing models is by far an extremely stressful job; trying to zip, button, add belts, lace up shoes and make sure everything is 110% correct before they step foot on the runway.

Although no matter how stressful, it was an amazing experience and a success that I wouldn’t have been able to be apart of if I hadn’t undertaken this internship at Steph Audino. I couldn’t be more grateful or lucky to be apart of it. 

This event definitely re-ignited my feelings towards wanting to be apart of the fashion industry through public relations.

*note; photos of the runway can be found on the Steph Audino Instagram page: @stephaudinolabel 

Did you feel that your internship help you decide whether or not you wanted to pursue a role in the public relations industry? Why/why not?

First Big Event: Website Launch Party

Half way through my internship and myself and the two other interns I was working with, had the daunting task of putting together a website launch party for the Steph Audino brand (talk about nerve-racking).  Everything from booking a venue to organising catering, choosing a guest list to creating invitations and everything in between. Although all the prep work for the event was super stressful, yet thoroughly exciting (am I right?) the most intimidating part of the whole event was making sure we upheld the Steph Audino reputation.

Steph Audino (the person) has the most radiant and positive personality, which is reflected in the Steph Audino brand. She has built strong relationships with the media, the Perth fashion industry, ‘perthonalities,’ bloggers, hair and make up artists and clients. Therefore we had to make sure that her reputation was not tainted by any means pre, during and post the Steph Audino website launch event.

Fast forward to the night of the event. Everything that needed to be taken care of was and now was the patient wait for guests to arrive; kind of like the calm before the storm. My only expectation for the night was to expect the unexpected. For the most part everything ran smoothly (surprisingly, however I’m not complaining), there were some minor hiccups behind the scenes, with running orders of the evenings schedule but nothing the guests would ever have any clues about (winning).

Overall I thought the event was extremely successful (and completely different to writing an event strategy in a PR plan).  The event was featured in the STM, The West Australian, on Perth blogger’s sites. Photos of the event were posted all over social media, particularly Instagram, which we know is extremely important for any brand in the new age media market.  

Post event, when we were re-capping on the night in the studio. Steph gave me a piece of advice that I could not only implement in the running of an event, but in all aspects of PR.

“It’s not about what goes wrong that defines the night, it’s how you handle it that decides if it was a success or not” – Steph Audino

Attached are some photos of the event:

An introduction to the tourism industry and worries about time management

After being stressed for weeks about not having a placement confirmed I have finally found myself with an internship in Tourism Western Australia's Corporate Communications department. I will also eventually work within the Public Relations department and the Media and Trade Familiarisation department later in my internship.

I was so nervous on my first day. I got up really early to go over my factsheet I had made of the organisation, ensure I had remembered to pack everything and to make sure I dressed professionally. I had planned out my route to the office, taking the train then walking through the city, however, I ended up arriving 40 minutes early which is a clear giveaway that I was freaking out. I told myself that being early is better than being late and sat and waited patiently.

When my supervisor arrived, greeted me and gave me and introduction to the office and its safety requirements my stress levels calmed down. All the staff in the office are welcoming and answer any enquiries that I have.

After being briefed on the Corporate Communications department's role and the remaining departments role, I began work on my first assignment with was to write a story for the corporate website.

I also wrote a draft letter for about an upcoming project and updated and contributed to the weekly e-newsletter.

On the second day I was looking over the website and it was really surprising to see the story I wrote already on the website. Obviously I knew it was going to be updated, however, it was just great to see that on day one I was contributing to the organisation. I feel like it's really important for employees to understand their role in the functioning of their workplace, I'm really stoked that I felt that sense of belonging and contribution so early.

In terms of my initial perspective of how the organisation operates, I believe that Tourism WA and its staff stand by their mission statement and core values, are transparent in their dealings, behaviour in a responsible and accountable manner and value their safety and wellbeing of their staff. All of which I value highly in a workplace.

On my second day I continued working on updating the e-newsletter and wrote more articles for the corporate website. I also received a report from a recently conducted survey then turned that in to a website story and piece for the e-newsletter. I like finally seeing the relevance of content studied over the last few years. This semester I am undertaking the new PUBR3001: Planning and Evaluation unit, and although it's not even halfway through the semester yet I can already understand why the unit has been introduced this semester. Whilst writing this stories and articles I have mentioned above I have also had to undertake secondary research.

The following day my work got edited by the Manager of Corporate Communications then was edited by the Director of Corporate Communications. I received a lot of red back on my work. Which didn't faze me at all because I understand that I don't understand the style of the voice of the organisation yet and also I am still familiarising myself with the publications stylebook which is an organisation wide guide to spelling, grammar, punctuation and word usage. Feedback is vital to understanding where you can improve, so I welcome the opportunity to gain that insight.

 Lastly I want to talk about my realisation of time slipping away from me. On blackboard whilst preparing for this internship I read about how time will become precious whilst completing this unit. I've never heard anything more true. I have only done four days so far and I'm struggling to fit in time from studying my three other units.

 I have definitely benefited from undertaking the optional time management module, but I'm still stressed about the workload.

Fingers crossed all works out.

Until next time.

-Caitlyn Rintoul

16172526