Placement update

Stage 3 Fashion Management student Hanne Pulkkinen is currently on a year long placement at Polhem – a fashion, beauty and lifestyle public relations agency in Helsinki, Finland.

Hanne has had a fantastic placement experience where she has worked on a range of exciting campaigns. Hanne says:

“The fashion scene in Finland is small and very much a close knit community – made up of editors, stylists, bloggers and influencers. Everybody knows everyone.

My days as an PR intern consisted of media coverage reporting, social media management, showroom management, events management and lots of other tasks from steaming clothes to mailing packages.

My favorite part has to definitely be the events!Because Polhem works with a large clientele of brands, I got to experience and participate in a great variety of events, not only fashion.

Last summer the ice cream brand Halo Top was launched in Finland. To celebrate, Polhem created a SUPER Finnish sauna boat launch event for Halo Top. This was such a fun experience since it was so out of my comfort zone coming from fashion studies.

The last event we organised (before COVID-19) was a SS20 collection launch for Vamsko, a local Finnish family owned shoe brand.

The quirky pink venue was the perfect place to have the event, which was an absolute success with great coverage for the brand and wonderful feedback for us as an agency too.”

Thanks so much to Hanne for sharing her experience and these beautiful photographs!

Happy new year and placement update

Happy new year to all our fashionable followers. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas break and are looking forward to welcoming our students back for the beginning of a new term and, indeed, a new decade!

It’s been lovely to hear from some of our students who are out on a year long placement and who have taken on some really exciting roles within industry. Third year Fashion Management student Liam Troup is on placement in the Creative, Content and Communications team at M&S Food in London and has been working on a number of exciting campaigns and initiatives – some of which he can’t even reveal to us as they’re still top secret! He says:

I’m now just over the half way point of my placement. Over the last six months I have be able to work on countless campaigns. Britain’s Got Talent The Champions and Christmas to only name a few. Looking forward to the coming six moths with some really exciting campaigns planned.

We are so proud to be able to offer our students such a vast range of work experience opportunities – in Aberdeen and further afield. For those who do decide to undertake a outside of Aberdeen, this can be a valuable part of the learning experience! Liam says:

London life is really busy but the buzz of working and living in the city totally makes it worth it and working as part of such an incredible team makes me love what I get to do even more.

In the next couple of weeks more of our students are heading out on shorter placements of between 6 and 12 weeks and we look forward to sharing some of their experiences here on the blog.

Needle & Thread London

Third year Fashion Management student Rebbeca Favero is on placement this year in the Marketing and PR department at Needle and Thread. Rebecca is loving her placement experience so far and adapting well to busy London life.

She said:

I am gaining valuable experience by accepting challenges and seeing how the dynamics of a successful brand work. The PR and Marketing team is really kind, professional and always willing to get me involved in the evolution of the brand by also co-working with other departments as wholesale and e-commerce… What I love the most is that I am really getting a full 360 degree insight of the work environment – full of responsibilities and objectives to achieve! Lately, we have been very busy at the office as we are soon launching the new Christmas and Bridal Collection, which is very exciting as I am greatly part of it! 

We wish Rebecca all the very best and look forward to welcoming her back for fourth year. We’d like to thank Needle & Thread for providing this exciting opportunity and Rebecca for sharing her experience – and these beautiful photographs.

Student success

Irina-Cristina Bogdan is a current stage three Fashion Management student here at Robert Gordon University.  Here she shares her thoughts on achieving a Pride in Partnership Award and the benefits it is bringing her…

“I applied for the Pride in Partnership Award from RGU on the advice of one of my lecturers, Dr Pauline Bremner.  This was due to my involvement in extracurricular activities within and outwith the University, where I am President of the Creative and Cultural Business Society and Vice-president of RGU Go Green for Kaim Shop. These opportunities have offered me real-life experiences and the opportunity to develop both personally and professionally.”

Irina has developed the skill set needed to take on future responsibilities easily, as well as her critical thinking skills through the process of applying for the award. In terms of career aspirations, Irina has gained confidence and a clearer understanding of her abilities. She feels she can now aspire to jobs she was previously uncertain to apply for.

This award is a valuable addition to Irina’s CV, alongside her recent placement experience at CLAN, where she received very positive feedback from her supervisor. During her placement at CLAN, Irina was involved in visual merchandising and store planning and design for the charity’s Aberdeen and Ballater stores.

Fashion at Christmas

 

Winter wishes from staff and students at the Fashion Place! We hope you’re all looking forward to your Christmas break. The warm Aberdeen summer is behind us and wasn’t it wonderful?! We love our autumn-winter styles here in Scotland and there are some trends we’re really excited about this year:

Modesty dressing 

The shops are quickly stocking up on party wear but hemlines have dropped and the sleeves have lengthened, catering beautifully for our cold Scottish climate. These loose-fitting styles make dressing for Christmas parties more comfortable (more room for dinner?) and easy – reducing the need for additional garments like jackets and cardigans. Midi skirts and dresses are available in a variety of prints from floral to polka-dot to animal print and here are some of our favourite high street picks:

It wouldn’t be Christmas without a Christmas jumper…

Or would it? Christmas jumpers have been back on the scene in a big way since 2012. They originally became fashionable in the 1980s, which perhaps explains why they are attractive today amongst nostalgic consumers who seek to reenact their retro Christmas past. There are some lovely styles in the shops, available in bright and more muted tones… Now might be a good time to dig out last year’s jumper or (if you’ve resisted so far) this might be the year to buy one…

 

BA (Hons) Fashion Management student Irina-Cristina Bogdan has provided some advice for shopping on a student budget…

Shop smartly: Party outfits can be expensive and you might think you are never going to get the glamorous look you want. But you don’t need to spend hundreds of pounds in luxury stores – Union Square, Trinity Centre and Bon Accord have great, accessible dresses that will catch all your friends’ eyes.

Narrow down your search: There are a lot of styles and colours and prints to choose from, so to make it easier, narrow your search down to sequins and bold prints, especially animal print this A/W 18.

Style appropriately: If you don’t want to be confused with a Christmas tree or a table centre piece when going with a bold dress, pair it with understated accessories.

My pick: I don’t wear a lot of animal print on a daily basis, therefore now is the time to go full print – a bold purple metallic and black zebra print dress (Miss Selfridge) to make an impact, paired with black high heels (New Look) and a black hand bag (Primark).

Voilà, a simple, fast and affordable outfit.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our fashionable followers!

 

Flying the fashion flag in Aberdeen

It’s great to see so many of our students involved in local fashion events and initiatives across Aberdeen. We love seeing what they get up to through our @fashionplace_rgu Instagram. Keep tagging us everyone!

Here are some of our students (from across the various years) at the Stellar Aberdeen and Must Have Dresses UK fashion show event last week!

We have a group of second year student helpers and models taking part in the MISS fashion show later this month at Aberdeen’s Marcliffe Hotel and we look forward to sharing more on their experience… We were also delighted to offer the opportunity for a group of students to attend the LOVE fashion event this week!

Fashion road trip

Today we took our first year and MSc Fashion Management students on their annual trip to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

We enjoyed a guided tour of the fashion gallery, followed by an insightful talk on ‘Diversity on and off the Catwalk’.

After our visit the students (and staff) had some free time to browse the shops before boarding the bus to Aberdeen. We hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did and we’re already looking forward to our trip next year, which is set to coincide with a special showcase of diversity in fashion.

Study abroad

Our students have the opportunity to study abroad during either their second or third year at RGU.

We have a number of partner institutions across the globe including in the Netherlands, Canada and Australia and we continuously work to build partnerships with new and existing institutions in order to grow the opportunities we are able to offer our students.

Study abroad is an excellent addition to students’ CVs in the increasingly competitive job market today. Particularly in the fashion industry where students need to be adaptable and able to understand different cultures and markets across a dynamic, global sector.

Stage 2 Fashion Management student Kelsie is spending the semester at Seneca College in Toronto, Canada and says of her experience so far:

“I’m having the best time! It was so easy to settle in and I’m really enjoying the course here too. The course coordinator has been amazing and gave us a tour of the campus and surrounding area. She said she was really pleased to have two fashion management students from RGU”

Kelsie and Emma have been enjoying exploring Canada and learning about the place as well as the exciting modules on the course.

Colouring our campus

This week our eleventh cohort of first year Fashion Management students have injected some colour into the campus with their fashion exhibition. Each year, as part of their Fashion Design Concepts and Communication module, the students are tasked with working in teams to create a colour exhibition.

The module aims to introduce our students to the basic components of visual communication and familiarise them with industry standard design software such as Adobe Photoshop and Kaledo Lectra.

It’s the first of a series of creative exhibitions that the students present during their time on the course. We look forward to seeing what else they have in store…

The last board (below) is particularly fitting with the autumnal mood on campus!

Mood boards

Attention all fashion management students; you know all those mood boards that we ask you to create whilst you’re studying on the course? Well here’s one of our graduates putting these skills into practice in her role in fashion branding at House of Fraser.

Fiona-Marie graduated in 2017 with a BA (Hons) in Fashion Management at RGU and has been working in her role at House of Fraser for the past few months. When we heard the news we were delighted to see one of our graduates had secured this exciting position, in what was a very competitive application and interview process!

Fiona-Marie’s role is to create and deliver brand advertising, customer communication plans and campaigns at House of Fraser and this includes television, out of home and social media advertising. Thanks for sharing Fiona-Maria and we wish you the very best of luck in your career!