“Many graduate students with no experience find it hard to find work and I don’t want to be one of them”.
Neelam Parveen.
We’ve had several interns working with our design department this year and our most recent, Neelam (Nelly), was with us for around 4 months learning about all of the processes involved with designing corporate uniform.
Nelly is just going into her final year at Birmingham City University, studying BA Fashion design. Though she originally found it hard to choose between garment technology and fashion design she went with her heart and chose design, but she knows it won’t be easy!
She applied for our internship to get a genuine taste of work life and to gain valuable experience to become more competitive in the job market once she has finished university.
Her favourite project whilst at Incorporatewear was working on the promotional aprons for our customers Lakeland, as she enjoyed adjusting the print and logo positioning on the aprons to create new designs and ideas. She also liked working with the Airline hats, as she could draw them from scratch and put all the necessary information along with them, including the measurements.
When asked what skills she has learnt, Nelly explained that she now knows how to bind presentations together and create presentation layouts as this had been a problem for her before, but will definitely help her in her final year at University.
We asked her what her favourite uniform that we supplied was and she chose our Virgin Atlantic uniform. She is inspired by how Vivienne Westwood teamed up with Richard Branson to redesign the uniform referencing to 40s couture cuts and Savile row tailoring. Nelly loves how environmentally conscious Vivienne is and that she is always looking to find fabrics that are sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Her favourite products though were our pre-tied scarves that can work for numerous customers as there were many different styles and variations that could be created. Though her other favourite products were our design manager Liz’s banana cakes!
We asked Nelly how this internship would benefit her in the future and she explained that it will help when applying for jobs after university as the fashion industry is difficult to get into.
Nelly’s favourite moment at Incorporatewear was celebrating our 20th Anniversary in July and being part of it. She helped create the award certificates and was challenged to keep the winners top secret.
The must haves in corporate uniform for Nelly are cultural wear, maternity wear and jazzy and quirky prints! She gave some tips for our next intern – be yourself and don’t be afraid to ask questions (they don’t bite!). Get ready for the fast paced environment where changes are made quickly, and show confidence.
