Oasis - Design Your Future #2

So some of you may have been watching Ireland Am this morning and you may have seen  the Oasis Design Your Future competition. Yes that was me pinning away at like a mad yoke! I didn’t make it through to the next round but I have to say I honestly had the best time. I finished college in 2009 and although I’ve worked in different areas of the industry, retail, visual merchandising and costume for TV and film I haven’t taken up a pencil or piece of fabric to design anything in over four years. So to get down to the last 10 and be selected as on par with 9 amazingly talented designers who have been working in the design industry was a big achievement for me and no matter how cliché it sounds I am really proud of myself. I wasn’t even sure if i would apply for the competition, I toyed around with the idea and literally sent my application off 10 minutes before the deadline and was never expecting to get anywhere.

I was obviously disappointed but who wouldn’t be after getting that far, the prize for whoever is lucky and talented enough to get it is amazing, its a years contract to work as a  junior designer in Oasis head office in London and an opportunity to design a capsule collection for them that will be on sale in all the Irish stores. I felt a little out of my depth in the challenge for the simple reason that I haven’t done anything like this in so so long but i’m delighted to say I got the buzz back and it has totally inspired me to get back on the designing bandwagon again.

Before I go any further I'd like to thank my friend Donna from Studio One for doin my hair for the day. She put it in a beautiful fishtail plait, as some of you might know I am useless at doin my hair so without her heaven knows what it would have looked like! I've already had some questions about what I was wearing. I wore a pleated patent skirt from River Island, a pair of Steve Madden white brogues and a fab check dress from Catch in the Ilac Centre.

Anyway back to the day, it was obviously filmed at NCAD, thats the National College of Art and Design. I was quite put off with the idea of the cameras, I’m used to being behind the camera waiting for someone to shout “Checks” and the idea of being in front of the lense was more than a bit daunting. It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought though, we were so busy the camera went mostly unnoticed but i did start to feel like the cheshire cat after a while... I’m quite a bubbly person but I don’t wear a grin 24/7 so having to smile all the time did get tedious! Everyone was lovely tho and although we were under a lot of pressure the atmosphere was quite relaxed. We genuinely weren’t told what the task was until the lovely and amazingly talented designer Emma Manley said it on camera, so we really were thrown in at the deep end. 

The challenge was to make a garment on the stand in 1 hour. My garment, a dress, was pretty basic, like I said I hadn’t done it in a while and I wanted to take on something I could complete rather than get too adventurous and end up with a shambles! I drew my inspiration from the A/W collections of Mark Jacobs and Louis Vuitton. I love the demure femme fatale aesthetic so I drew from it creating a knee length dress, with an off the shoulder collar, 3/4 length sleeves and a centre front slit. Not very “designer” I know but I would wear it and i thought it was a little Kate Middleton-esque so I was happy with myself. Unfortunately it just didn’t fit the Oasis design aesthetic so my journey ended there.

I have to say it was an amazing experience and opportunity that I am very grateful for. Some might say its odd but it has really given me a huge confidence boost and a new found hunger for success within the industry. I’ve got more drive now than I had before this experience and more self belief. There is no such thing as failing in this life. You have to put yourself out there for new experiences and opportunities. Whether you ultimately ‘make it’ in these experiences or not is not always the point. With every opportunity siezed comes invaluable experience and lessons, it helps you grow as a person. Infact sometimes not winning in one aspect can help lead you to winning in many more and make you feel more fulfilled. Like the old saying goes “its not always the winning, but the taking part that counts.”

I want to wish everyone left in the competition the best of luck. I really hope you enjoy every task as much as I enjoyed that one! You’re a great group of very talented girls and I’ll be following you all the way.

For those of you who missed the program, the link to us doing task 1 and the eliminations is here and the feed back from the judges is here.

Zee xx

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