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?

The Butcher & The Crow

This week the main focus was on a launch produced by The Studio featuring a local designer Elisha Quinta, and her autumn/winter 2014 collection. Her label, The Butcher & The Crow embraces the resurgence of an appreciation for the hand made and its processes. The event was held at the Riverview Hotel on Mount St, and featured a runway showcasing her latest collection.

In the lead up to the event I was advised to research the guest list in order to familiarise myself with the many socialites, company representatives, media and models attending the event. In doing this I made a table with the names of the guests and noted down any information I could find from old articles and the help of social media!

My job for the night was to manage the media pit, this involved guiding a bunch of photographers through the runway routine, pointing out the best position in order to capture the models, and control when the media was allowed to take photographs back stage before the event. I also had to assist the media when taking pictures of the guests, as I was able to inform them who they were and point out guests that should be photographed.

Here a few backstage snaps of the models before the show, taken by stylevoyeur.com

After lots of preparation and planning, the night turned out to be a great success. I’m feeling much more confident in my tasks, and I'm learning new things every week! In the following couple of days I cut out several different articles regarding the event all of which were positive reviews!  

Stuck in an elevator with Ruth Tarvydas

Stuck in an elevator with Ruth Tarvydas (Perth’s famous ball gown designer)

Not exactly what I had in mind when I accepted the internship with The Studio however I’ve definitely had my share of awkward, exciting and eye-opening experiences to say the least.  Wednesday morning involved a lot of stressful running around, communicating with clients, and organizing last minute things for our up-coming Bridal High Tea event that The Studio is hosting.

Arriving at the office I had a list of jobs that needed to be completed before 12pm.  The first was to collect eight Ruth Tarvydas gowns from a store and deliver them to Ruth Tarvydas herself as they were urgently needed for a photo shoot. After collecting the gowns I then had to make my way from Claremont to the other side of Perth in peak hour traffic and return before 10:00am…not an ideal start to the day. On arrival an assistant met me outside to rudely inform me the dresses “needed to be in bags” and that Ruth is not going to be very happy! I kindly apologized and offered to help take the gowns up stairs... needless to say the assistant was not very impressed. After delivering the gowns I quickly hurried out to wait for the lift, in which Ruth Tarvydas follows…

Feeling very anxious and uncomfortable, as I had just delivered eight of her dresses without their dress bags, I held the lift door open for her. As the lift began to go down Ruth started asking me questions, as she seemed generally interested in my background and who I was.  We got chatting and before I knew it we had already hit the ground floor…turns out she is a very lovely person after all!

After the gowns had been delivered I headed back to the office to organize some last minute things for our upcoming event. This involved editing time sheets, run sheets and sorting through model competition cards. My last task for the day was to create an Instagram post for one of our clients to upload in order to promote a Redken Product (well known hair care brand).  These are the cheesy lines I came up with:

“Using Redken’s new Pillow Proof Blow Dry Shampoo to get us through fashion week, extending the life of any blow dry!”

“Turn up the shine by trying Redken's new Diamond Oil, infused with a nourishing blend of coriander and apricot!”

Even though it was a stressful week with lots of deadlines to meet I feel like I'm learning so much. Looking forward to next week!

Sharnee