My overall experience at work placement

Vlasta Collu

So here I am on my first day of work placement and the most stressful thing is writing this journal, but anyway about my work placement I am working in South Woodford, on the other end of the Central line. I am working for a woman called Vlasta Collu. I started on the 28^th December and finished 22^nd February.

About my designer :- Vlasta is from Slovakia and she has a boutique in a large building with her workshop just across from it. In the boutique all the stools, seats and curtains are the same fabric which she made herself and everything in her workshop is from IKEA!!! She owns her own business and designs bridal wear, couture evening dresses, hats and shoes clips and lots of other things.  She makes bespoke designs or made to measure dresses.

I learnt she has a partner called Corrine that helps run one part of her business, I thought this was funny because she wasn’t even trained in dressmaking until a year ago when Vlasta taught her. I think Vlasta must be an amazing teacher she is got Corrine up and running in a year. Corrine works in the a beauty shop a few doors down from the studio and when she finishes work she comes to help with making the sample dresses for the US. She is really nice, both Vlasta and Corrine believe in psychics.

On my first day I was worried that I would mess up really badly. When I got there I was given the basics, I was shown around and we went through health and safety regulations.

The first bit of work I did was cutting out pictures for her portfolio . It wasn’t very exciting but I had to start somewhere.

The next thing I did was to take apart sample dresses, as she reuses the fabric for new dresses, she says its saves her hundreds of pounds by doing this.

Vlasta says she will teach me whatever I want to know - such as how to finish a lining, how to make a couture corset and where to get the best fabrics.

Vlasta has a few stockist in Europe and she is now expanding over to the US. So we had to make wedding dresses samples and also couture clothes and get them sent off the US.

There was one dress that we were working during my work placement

was a sample dress for the US and it was the most amazing soft silk, but it wasn’t the feel of the fabric I liked but the colour. It was the perfect shade of midnight blue and when I left she gave me a scrap piece to take with me which was amazing of her and she also gave me her old sample fabric book which she got from Bennetts Silks its falling apart but it was so nice of her.

While I was there I also made a couture corset for myself. I started with a pattern that Vlatsa gave me, she said not to give the pattern to anyone else because its her own pattern. Then I made it from calico and fit it to me then I picked out some scrap fabric that she had laying around, it was a silk dupion, it was blue and I loved it. Once I had cut out the silk, I learnt how to sew on the plastic boning and then how to finish the lining which is what I really wanted to learn. It only took me a few days to finish and I really enjoyed doing it.  

Vlatsa said I should start making clothes for myself as I will learn how to fit clothes to a woman’s body properly.

Another little trick I learnt was how to cut a straight line on scrap pieces of fabric - snip into the fabric a little then pull on one thread and pull it out and then your left with a straight line.

While I was there I also helped with a photo shoot for her new collection. We used a model called Alice, only she wasn’t really a model - she just helps Vlasta out sometimes. It was fun helping with this. Vlasta did the photo shoot herself as she is trained in photography and also has degrees in other things like Mathematics’.

I remember that day particularly because when we finished packing up Vlasta was so tired that she lay down on her floor with a sleeping bag that she keeps in the studio for times like this and then fell asleep!

So during that time I tidied up and then sorted out the collection. I did this by going through each outfit and writing a list of what needs to be done on each dress. I then put the list on the coat hangers with the dress and then put them in order of what had the most to be done. She was asleep for a long time, so I left her a note saying what I had done and that I had gone home. She was very happy with how organized I was, it helped a lot.

After we finished the samples and my corset, me and another girl called Lullahbelle learnt how to make silk flowers. It was pretty amazing and also really easy. To start we stiffen the silk petals with glue and dampen them a little, then we used flower shaping tools that had to be very hot. After we finished what felt like a million petals, we had to start making them into flowers by adding bendable wire and a bead in the centre and twisting it so it doesn’t come off. We then sew one petal onto the wire and then glue the rest of the petals on to look like a flower using UHU glue.

I learnt so much in my 8 weeks at work placement, I learnt more there then I have at my year and half at Uni.

So I think do we have to go to Uni just to get a degree? Why can’t we start at the bottom in what we want to do and work our way up. I know it helps to have a degree but is going to Uni just a waste of time and money? The funny thing is when I was younger, I thought I had to go to Uni if I wanted to work in Fashion, but the truth is you can probably learn a lot more a lot faster if you just start at the bottom and work your way up. I think whether you have a degree or not you start at the same level in the beginning and just work your way up.

However, I am going to stay at Uni and finish my degree.

 Here is A few photos I took while I was there.

 Silk Flower Making