Spending summer 2019 as a styling intern here at PATTERN Magazine has been such a memorable experience!
I immediately started off by making connections with local boutiques to both confirm and create relationships with them which helped me improve my professional communication in order to maintain a community. PATTERN was the perfect place for me to intern because I was given not only freedom of what I wanted to accomplish this summer but a complete safe space of people that believed and helped me gain access to the resources needed to bring my ideas to life! I was able to publish my first fashion article where I collaborated with my local community to bring it all together and style several shoots. PATTERN allows access to other creatives and opportunities within Indianapolis.
One of my main goals this summer was to disprove the idea that Indianapolis was only filled with cornfields and lost dreams as a lot of natives say and I can say with 100% assurance that I not only successfully disproved that close minded idea but also am now immersed in the rich community of Indy! Whenever I tell anyone that I am into fashion they say, “Ooh so you plan on moving to New York right!? Because Indy has nothing to offer!” Although Indy’s fashion industry is a freshman compared to New York, it has so much untapped talent and is truly an underdog that is shooting towards the forefront slowly but surely.
My internship at PATTERN has been my dream come true! I have always longed for a safe space to create, connect with a community, all while gaining resources that could be an asset to my visions. Here I have not only improved skills I had already obtained but developed new ones. I have improved on posing models to both capture the aesthetic at hand and flatter all types of shapes and sizes through assisting with test shoots. I have improved on executing photoshoot ideas and fashion looks others and myself have thought of. My overall confidence in my skills that I came into with have significantly increased. Skills I have been encouraged to grow into have been editing both pictures and videos, social media marketing, and creatively directing photo shoots.
That does not even begin to speak on the wonderful fellow creatives I have come in contact with that I am excited to collaborate with in due time! I have gotten the privilege to attend a wide variety of events that reminded me that there are creatives in Indy who are also taking the “high risk” in believing in their creations to move them up in life and that my dreams are not too far out of my reach if I do not allow it. This internship has not only touched myself but so many people that have witnessed the things I have been introduced to. I have so many friends and family in Indy that were so surprised and is now interested in exploring Indy with a new perspective.
