Heat One: Chic Model Search

Perth Fashion Festival, Chic Model Search presented by Student Edge

Hi all,

Sunday the 9^th of September I had Heat One of the Perth Fashion Festival, Chic Model Search presented by Student Edge at Garden City Shopping Centre.

The week leading up to the first event started very smoothly, we were 100% organised with our cars packed, banners delivered, MC organised etc. On the day of Heat One our DJ had cancelled due to illness, this was the first sign of the day not going exactly as planned! We arrived bright and early at the centre and briefed out volunteers, who were amazing on the day! The day commenced as planned with registration leading from 11-12pm and the Heat commencing at 12.15pm, this is where things started to slip. We had a massive communication meltdown between the project managers and the MC, with the heat going too fast and the judges not having the full amount of time to complete judging. I learnt it is very important to keep your cool and to continue with the event in a professional manner. Things aren’t always going to go as planned but if you continue to stress over something that has gone wrong it turns into a domino effect, so it is best to deal with the situation and move on instead of dwelling on the problem if it cannot be fixed.

Overall the day was fine but it definitely was a learning curb and the following heat will be delivered in a different way. It was nice to see all of our hard work being put into action.

The week leading up to the event we also had a bad article published about Johnny Ruffo. As the Sunday Times are one of our sponsors a journalist was asked to write a piece about Johnny Ruffo attending the Chic Model Search Final held at Forrest Place and is looking to be a great night! There is a competition also in place at the moment on the PFF facebook page for twenty lucky winners to win a meet and greet with Johnny and sit front row with him at the Final. Unfortunately the journalist decided to make the article about Johnny being “single and ready to mingle” whilst he is in Perth and wrote the incorrect dates. This was not so great!

We have the next Chic Model Search heat tomorrow at Karrinyup Shopping Centre with a new MC, fingers crossed things go a lot smoother!

Until next time,

Laura Johns
14755174

Perth Fashion Festival

Welcome to my Blog! My name is Laura Johns and I am in my final semester at Curtin University studying a Bachelor of Humanities majoring in Public Relations and Journalism.

I was very fortunate this year to be offered an internship as a project manager for the Perth Fashion Festival. I am one of three project managers for the Chic Model Search, a side project by PFF. I am currently three weeks into my internship, completing 3-4 days a week. The Chic Model Search presented by Student Edge is a model search looking for one model, male or female, aged between 15-21 years old to be signed to Chic Model Management and have an opportunity to fly to New York to meet with one of the world’s best modelling agencies. There are four events;

 

Sunday, 9^thSeptember Model Registration and Heat #1 held at Garden City Shopping Centre

Sunday, 16^thSeptember Model Registration and Heat #2 held at Karrinyup Shopping Centre

Saturday, 22^ndSeptember Semi-Finals held at Wesley Quarter

Sunday, 23^rdSeptember Model Search Final held at Forrest Place

*All events are free to the public

To begin with I felt like I had been thrown into the deep end, with so much working needing to be done as the events were due to commence in three weeks’ time. My first two weeks consisted of a lot of paper work (re-doing the event brief, running schedules, terms and conditions, judges and special guests itinerary, information’s guides for the contestants, judges sheets etc), meetings with the three centre managements, organising staging, sourcing judges, writing the MC's script, organising DJ's, photographers etc. It has been a very busy and stressful couple of weeks!

There are many perks that come with working with PFF, my second day at the internship I was invited to attend the 2012 Perth Fashion Festival Launch which was an amazing event and I was able to meet with people in the industry and network. We also booked Johnny Ruffo to attend at the final of the Chic Model Search, which was exciting being able to talk to him personally on the phone to organise him to attend.

 

One of the main challenges I have faced over the past two weeks is communication barriers. I have realised that absolutely everything needs to be done in emails, as proof later on down the track. It is quiet challenging liaising with two other people from different offices and sometimes it is difficult if one thing is confirmed and organised but then changed without your knowledge as you haven’t been CC’d into an email. I’ m very lucky to have an amazing mentor at PFF who encourgaes me to have my own voice and opinion and has helped me strengthen my event co-ordination skills.

 That’s all from me for now!

Until next time,

Laura Johns
14755174