Afua (Mommiee) Boadu  BA Fashion Design, 2010

Expansion Manager at The Workspace

The classes at Winchester School of Art are good and the professors have interesting perspectives on design that allow you to explore different ways to reveal your aesthetic to your chosen audience.

I really enjoyed the exposure to different techniques in designing, constructing and promoting fashion. I was able to apply my love for prints into learning how to hand-paint, screen-print and digitally print onto fabric.

Sometimes the social life options were lacking in Winchester, and I wish I had interacted with the main Southampton campus more. It also took me a while to adapt to the teaching style; I had been studying in the US, where lecturers are more hands-on, whereas in the UK they give you the ‘skeleton’ and encourage you to explore more on your own.

I now work for The Workspace as an Expansion Manager, and I also have my own online lingerie and swimwear label which I launched in 2014.

At The Workspace I organise events and secure clients and partners for the company, as well as creating proposals for clients. I first began working there as a Digital Marketer, after I decided I wanted to explore the skills I had acquired in design and digital marketing at WSA.

I continue to manage social media for my own label, as well as maintaining the website, developing prototypes, and creating and cutting patterns. Studying at WSA gave me the knowledge I needed to understand how to create a collection, from research and exploration through to design and construction. It also taught me patience and perseverance - my next goal is to raise enough money to go into production and sell my lingerie and swimwear label at trade shows.  The most successful designers don’t achieve this overnight!

My advice to students studying Fashion Design would be:

·         Intern, intern, intern!

·         Try all the techniques out there before you decide what to focus on, e.g. digital printing, screen printing, weaving knitting etc. WSA has excellent tools and machines for fabric manipulation, and this will definitely set you apart in the industry

·         Be open to criticism from your tutors and your peers

·         Develop a portfolio from the get-go.

·         You may not get a fashion job immediately after you leave university, and that’s OK. Use your time to develop your work, and you could try using POD (print on demand) sites and sell your work online

·         If you have enough money, attend the major fashion weeks e.g. New York, London, Milan and Paris. See the collection, and interact with possible buyers and designers.