And so i've not long completed a 3 week internship at Religion clothing. I worked within the menswear team of charlotte wiseman (head of menswear) and Tahsin, this was in preparation for the AW12 season. They spend most of their year out in religions factory in Bali. i was asked to come into their head office for 2 days a week during July/August whilst they were in the UK where i was put to researching a whole lot of different things. This included gothic hawaiian shirts, biblical names, SS12 shows, jersey designs, just to name a few. I even was asked to draw out some designs for a hoodie for the next season, which was great because i love religions style so much. The research was so relevant to me and helped me to focus my own ideas for my signature and design style, looking into that of dark macabre, religion, gothic victorian ideas to again name just a few.
I also had the chance to work with sadie who is the buying, selling and merchandising machine. I got to see an overview of the brand and the whole design-to-customer process. I'd never really thought of all the buying, business and selling of fashion, its always been creative for me and made you realise just how vital it is to fashion business and to fashion itself. I worked with Sadie deciding on which pieces to stock at their new store opening in Australia. This also made me think more about target marketing and for who you are selling to. Australian fashion is so very different to that of London's and therefore had to be thought about very differently. (Think 5 years behind London)
I've learn so much seeing as this placement was very different to others i have completed. The religion team is more of an office-based work environment than a creative team. Yeah you have people occasionally working on mannequin or toiling but the whole atmosphere is more business than art. The majority of the day is spent on PC which i suppose is concurrent with a high street, retail based design team but which showed me just how different an approach to fashion design can be.
Anyway, if you haven't seen any of religion's designs then they have two stores in the UK:
Shoreditch: 128 Shoreditch High St, London E1 6JE
0207 6130 606
Spitalfields: 154 Brick Lane, London E1 6RU
0207 092 9802
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