On Sunday night I received from Emma the video lessons for all the modules of the new online course.
She lives in New York and I’m in Milan so it was 1 am in Italy of Feb 1st when I got the material.
It’s Monday morning, 10 am when I’m writing this, I woke up at 6:30 am to watch for the first time the entire new online course…
… can I just say WOW?
But maybe it’s better to start from the beginning in case this is the first time that you read about this.
Over the past 7 years with Glam Observer, all the questions, emails and messages that I’ve gotten are centered around this topic: how do I get a job in fashion? And of course, it’s totally normal that I get this kind of request as Glam Observer is a fashion career advice platform.
During the past years, I’ve always wanted to bring you the resources that can help you reach your end goal: working in fashion.
In short, to get a job/internship in fashion you need these three main things:
- the correct unconventional application strategies to stand out in this competitive field
- to start building your network even if you don’t have a job yet
- a professional and attractive cv template and effective cover letters and emails to send to fashion professionals to get the job.
And to help you deal with all of that and master all these things I enclosed everything inside Break into the fashion industry.
But you also need a dose of confidence and motivation. So I published my first book Your Fashion dream plan.
Over the past months, I thought about other ways I can help you land a job in fashion and I started putting down a list of skills that you need to acquire to be successful in this industry. Even though attending a fashion school is not absolutely necessary to work in this industry, still having knowledge about the industry is important, I’ve already talked about why in this article.
So I wanted to bring you this kind of fashion knowledge. I decided that I wanted to enclose everything inside a new online course.
My daily bread is application strategies and career advice applied to fashion, so even though I know how the industry works, I thought that probably for this new resource it would have been better for you to learn from someone whose daily bread is teaching about fashion and knowing a lot about this industry and its history.
I could have created this new course myself by putting down something that I would have found in books or online, but that’s not the way I think or operate. Unfortunately, I see more and more people who define themselves as experts in something just because they have read an article or a book or try to reproduce the contents of those who have been doing their job for some time and have knowledge and experience. I love that you can learn basically anything online, but on the other side, you need to be able to recognize if what you are reading and who you are learning from, is a trusted source. We all can start a blog, add coach or advisor on the Instagram bio, so be careful with the information you get.
In the last 4 years full-time at Glam Observer + 3 part-time I can confidently say that I know about the topic of careers in fashion and giving advice to those who want to work in this industry, but as for its history, I know the key concepts simply out of my pure curiosity and this is not enough to be able to teach and pass on information to someone else. So I decided to invest in this new resource and find the most experienced person in this field who would have been able to pass on knowledge about the fashion industry and its history.
I also remember that on the job interview for my internship, a fashion recruiter was impressed by some online fashion courses that I had on my resume because of the teacher’s name. So I wanted to bring you someone recognized in the industry so that not only the information you learn is precise, but that also has value on your CV when you add the certification.
I started making my research in September 2020. I was looking for fashion historians and other people who know a lot about fashion and that are also academic so they can teach you their insider knowledge. I talked to 8 fashion industry experts. They all had great curricula but one of them sent me a YouTube video of her speaking at the fashion institute of technology. It took me a couple of seconds listening to her tone of voice to catch all her professionalism, passion and knowledge of the industry. I immediately realized she was the right one for this new project. She’s a fashion historian, author of several fashion books, she curated the museum of the FIT for 9 years and she currently teaches Fashion Studies at Parsons School of Design in NYC one of the top prestigious fashion schools in the world. She’s been featured on Vogue, WWD, The New York Times… she is Emma McClendon.
Over the past months, we have worked together to build what has become a brand new online course part of The Glam Observer Fashion Academy. We talked about the modules we thought would have been most useful for you. We combined my experience at Glam Observer, considering what you’ve asked me the most and need for your career in fashion, and her experience as a teacher and historian, and we decided to cover the key areas of the fashion industry to give anyone an overview of the fashion business.
When I choose Emma McClendon among all the other people I was considering for this course, I already knew that she was the right choice… she’s professional, knows the fashion industry like very few and also such a beautiful person…
I knew that the course would have been great… we talked about each module in our calls over the past months, we designed it together but I gave her total freedom to develop the content. She’s a fashion historian, has published several fashion books, teaches at Parsons School of Design, curated the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum and many fashion exhibitions for 9 years… So I’ve trusted her experience and knowledge…
So let’s go back to the beginning when I said I woke up at 6:30 to watch all the video lessons and materials of the course for the first time.
It’s Monday morning and the course officially launches on Wednesday Feb 3rd.
I was soooooo curious to learn more from Emma personally, but of course also to see the results of these past months.
…and now I can totally say that everything is above my expectations.
It was a risky decision for me to invest in this online course…this is the first time that I’m adding to The Glam Observer Fashion Academy an online course taught by someone else who is not me… but I felt it in my gut that it was the right choice for you. As I said I could have improvised a course, but that would have not been fair for you, I wanted to offer you something really valuable. I’m quite a perfectionist and I’ve always, always wanted to give you the best content. When I teach my online courses I know that I give 190% in that resource, I only teach and talk about things that I’m 300% sure of, and that’s why students see results. So with this course, I really needed someone so knowledgeable that could give you the same level or even higher of quality.
Teaching at Parsons, one of the most prestigious and famous schools in the world (big names like Marc Jacobs come from Parsons) I had no doubt that Emma’s lessons would have been so valuable, but I found myself smiling this morning when watching all the videos.
And let me be honest, I also felt so proud that this valuable resource is now part of Glam Observer.
The course is incredible..and I’m not just saying it because now it’s part of the Glam Observer courses, I mean seriously.
I took many online fashion courses even from prestigious fashion schools and I also took a Master in luxury and fashion management here in Milan so I have lots of experience in fashion education.
I’m happy that the result is even better than what I expected.
I’m so excited and proud that you, part of Glam Observer can learn more about the fashion industry with one of the top minds of the industry.
I wish I had a course like this when I wanted to learn more about the fashion industry and to be totally honest with you, even though I’m in this industry for 7+ years, I learned so many things I didn’t know from this new online course, particularly some history facts that are still relevant today and that helped me understand and realize why things go like this today in this industry.
I was sure that I would have learned a lot as well personally from this course because you never know enough of anything… ongoing learning is something that I’ve kept doing religiously every single day since when I graduated, I never stopped learning and it’s something I’ll never stop doing.
However, to come back to the new online course, it looks like you are watching a fashion documentary, with all the beautiful fashion images that Emma shows you in her slides, it’s entertaining but unlike with a fashion documentary, you also have a Fashion Glossary in your hand ( 10-pages, 100+ fashion terms definitions, included in the course for free), and a notebook in another to take notes, AND with a certification released that you can add to your CV/LinkedIn Profile 😉
Emma’s voice is so engaging that it seems like she’s telling you a story instead of teaching a class.
If you haven’t yet, watch the video above to learn more about the course and hear from Emma directly.
Join many students who have already enrolled in this new online course. Click here to explore Inside the fashion industry
