How I Became A Fashion Designer During NYSC
My first experience with fashion design was after secondary school. I needed a job because I didn’t want to sit back at home and wait on my parents to meet my needs. So I reached out to an older friend who linked me to his older friend who needed a receptionist for his fashion store. He accepted me after negotiations and I resumed working there. Let’s call him Mr Easy.
Mr Easy would always joke about my concentration whenever he has to cut the fabrics ahead of sewing. I was fascinated about the art of making dresses so much that I’d always sit close to where the cutting takes place and he would tell me “Christie, if only you can understand the metrics of cutting this fabric by just staring, you’d have been so great at it”.
He wasn’t willing to put me through because that wasn’t in my job description, but I wasn't the one to back off. So I proceeded to volunteer to use the industrial weaving machine since that was much easier to use.
I’d plead with the team in charge of sewing to allow me to use the industrial weaving machine when the boss is not at the store. I remember my first trial 😆, I almost spoilt a client’s outfit but my colleagues were gracious enough to cover up for me.
I guess they saw the passion and desire in my eyes to learn, so they indulged me till I was so good at it. And one day, we took up courage and I proceeded to use the weaving machine in the presence of the boss, he was surprised and wondered if I could do it, well, I did, and it turned out well(I was so proud of myself, 💃).
No, I did not abandon my responsibility. As a supposed receptionist, my duties entailed attending to prospective and existing clients when they walk into the store and when they don’t, I was practically idle so let’s just say I made good use of my idle time.
Fast forward to the next time I had the opportunity to work in a fashion store. It was about 3 years from my first experience and I was in the University, but I never lost my fire and passion. So, as soon as we discovered that ASUU was acting up, I reached out to one of my secondary school teachers who was a serving corp member back then and currently has a fashion store. Let’s call her Lady T.
She practically aided my baby step in fashion designing. She made me get brown papers, where she drew straight lines for me and asked me to use the sewing machine and follow those straight lines and that was how I started learning how to use a sewing machine to sew. I sewed on the brown papers for about a week or two, at some point, she introduced me to curves and funny shapes. She simply drew the curves for me, showed me how to draw them as well and ask me to sew on the curves.
Later on, she taught me how to get a body measurement and transfer it to fabrics. She taught me and I learnt how to make pencil skirts, A-line skirts, amidst others. ASUU repented and I had to return to school. I went with my skirts and my knowledge and secretly nursed my desire to go back to learning full-time. I never had the opportunity to do that till my service year.
To avoid getting bored and to also occupy me, I yielded to a nudge from the Holy Spirit to return to learning fashion design. I got there, though it felt like I was learning it all over again but I was excited.
The first day I brought a dress to amend, my boss was surprised and he asked if I had previously learnt how to sew. I excitedly answered in the affirmative and proceeded to amend my dress. My fellow corps members were surprised, a couple of them had been at the centre and still can’t peddle a sewing machine. But for me, it just felt like eating chocolate cake.
Gradually, I graduated to being able to make my own dress and I successfully made four dresses before I left, should have been more but covid kicked in so we had to take a break.
Through this journey, I learnt a couple of things,
- Don’t be afraid to start all over
- If you don’t get it at your first attempt, try again till you get it.
- While learning a skill, technical or soft, practice your knowledge.
- Work on real-life projects with your skills
- What you know stays with you, so invest more in knowing what you are passionate about.
And finally, don’t be ashamed to ask for help whenever you need it from those who can give you.
You can reach me on LinkedIn, if you will love to connect with me, i literally spend my entire day there(I’m kidding 😂) so you can be sure that I’d respond to your questions and chats.
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