Knitwear and Print Designer

I am fresh out of Chelsea College of Art and Design, and trying to find my path in the difficult world of fashion. I studied Textile Design, and on my course you were free to put in as much or as little work as you liked with results to reflect that on graduation. I chose hard work, and I didn’t get much sleep in my final year! Something I struggled with was how far to go when inputting to fellow students’ work: where is the right line between selflessness and being a doormat? I’m not sure I really worked that one out, but I definitely learnt something about the grace of God, and the balance between being generous with time and ideas, and also having authority to say ‘no’.

Having just returned from a 3-month work placement with a Paris fashion house, I am now back in the less glamorous London working out my future. I am doing bits of freelance work while I look for a permanent position. It’s a hard and competitive path, filled with a thousand other wanna-be designers, but right now I don’t want to be doing anything else. God made me creative, so I want to create, and I hold onto the knowledge that he has got good things in store for me. It’s a faith stretching exercise, but I know that he hasn’t brought me this far to leave me stranded, or floundering now.

One of my challenges now is keeping a good attitude even when you’re doing work you don’t enjoy, and not allowing it to drain your creativity or enthusiasm. I also find it a sad reality of the design world that employers often aren’t looking for real creativity-just as long as you can rip off someone else’s design: what a waste of talent, and how dull. I’m also learning about not getting knocked back by rejection: I think that as a Christian this is an easier issue to deal with. If your identity and acceptance comes from God, and not the work you produce, you can handle professional rejection of your work as separate from rejection of self.

I get real support from Christian friends though, particularly at Artisan, a network for people working in the arts, media and entertainment industries. It’s inspiring to meet other folk facing the same challenges, and hearing how God has been faithful through hard times and good. Spending time with God gives me a sense of the bigger picture: design excites me, but that’s not all there is to life, and God values and loves me independent of what I do. I’m not merely as interesting or important as the job I do.