Hello, my name is Laura, and my field of study is Clothing, Textiles, Material Culture and Design. I have just transferred in to the Human Ecology program at the University of Alberta and I am excited to get involved with the program and the various clubs it offers. I am aware that fashion is a tough industry, and communication is extremely important for new interns especially for contacts and resources.  In my case these contacts are important for figuring out who I would like to work with during my practicum. Fashion is the field I want to work in and I know I am going to have to start at the bottom of the chain.  I am not afraid of this because I love the experience and want to grow in to myself and my own personal brand.  

  Luckily, I do have connections through friends, who know local designers, photographers, stylists and fashion bloggers. Though, these connections are not solidly established, I am keeping up to date with their projects and reading their profiles and working on one day  doing my practicum with anyone of them, hopefully. Communication for me between them right now is mostly following them on twitter, liking them on Facebook and commenting on their works.  Mainly, it is more about the social networking and finding out information via the internet, I find this will help me the most for when I later communicate with them directly. I will have the confidence to be able to talk to them whether via email, over the phone or in person, the background knowledge, I anticipate will help.  

Communication is something I do need to step up on when it comes to volunteering.  Thus far, I have communicated with the founder and director of Edmonton Fahsion Week, Sandra Sing Fernandes, and have asked her if I could assist with anything during Western Canada Fashion Week, being held in March. Excitingly enough, she responded fairly fast and is even asking if I can help out with fashion shoots this month. I sent one simple email saying I was a student at the U of A in Clothing and Textiles and was interested in volunteering and I had no idea I would get such an awesome response! The next step, meeting her in person which I am hoping will be just as pleasantly surprising and that I don’t make a fool out of myself since she is a much respected woman in the fashion industry, especially here in Edmonton.
http://www.fashionmagazine.com/blogs/fashion-reporters/2009/08/14/edmonton-at-the-helm-of-edmonton-fashion-week/#more-7316

For the future I need to continue to communicate with my contacts and fellow students in my program. I need to communicate with my student council and participate in quite a bit more activities in my future field of work and the activities that happen on campus. I will need to have good communication skills to let people I work with (whether in school or in the professional field) know what I am searching to do and who or what company I would like to work with!

Link to a girl I met the second or third day of ALES 204 class: http://sarahjdube.blogspot.com/


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