Fashion Student Final Collection
Donation protected
In today's world, fashion can mean different things to different people. To me, fashion is not simply all the beautiful and trendy things we see in stores and magazines. Fashion is art, expressed through needle and cloth. Fashion is a lifestyle. Fashion has a voice of its own and every individual uses that voice to express themselves. When it comes to fashion, I don’t only follow the trends, I use the trends to express my own voice and personality. I use fashion to allow people to see who I am, and let them know what I am capable of.
I have been interested in fashion since as long as I can remember. When I was three years old, I would host fashion shows in my mother’s bedroom. She would turn on the music, and I would create clothes from towels, scarves, or anything I could find in her closet. I would make them into clothes, appear from behind the curtain, and strut down the bed using it as my own personal catwalk. It was from that moment, I started dreaming of being a fashion designer. After that taste of the catwalk at an early age, I went on to have my own fashion show in high school where I created the entire show. I sketched out the designs, bought fabric, and got to see my designs come to life. Watching models go down the catwalk wearing my clothes was one of the best moments of my life, and one that I would love to create professionally. Whilst joining the fashion industry has been my dream for a long time, it wasn't an easy path to choose growing up. In the small town in Vietnam, where I come from, fashion wasn't a priority for most people. In order to afford beautiful clothes and fashion magazines, I would skip a meal or two. Growing up, while other children were out playing, I would spend my free time sketching and researching the latest international fashion trends.
After my mother's death when I was sixteen, and my dad always being on business trips, my sister became my guardian. She took care of me, and made all decisions for me. Therefore she choose Hotel and Tourism as my profession, and forced me to study this. She thought that fashion school was too expensive, and it's a risk to spend so much money for something artistic. I could've fought harder, and rebelled about it because I hated it so much. However, I knew I couldn't change her mind. I had to choose, either to leave the confines of my small town, experience a new life in Europe, and have a profession that might help me in fashion design in the future. Or I could stay in Vietnam for nothing. I could have never stayed in Vietnam.
In my first year of Hotel School, I thought I could quit at some point, but I wasn't a quitter then, and I am not a quitter now. I finished my degree in Hotel and Tourism to please my sister, but at the same time I worked hard to save up money to attend Fashion School someday. That dream was like a fire that never died inside me, and I realized that if I was going to make it as a fashion designer, I would have to achieve this on my own. This is even more true, since my father's death 4 years ago. For the past few years, I have been working in Geneva to save up for the tuition to obtain a degree in fashion design.
I have finally reached that goal, through a great deal of hard work, and I was now ready to take the next step toward IFA Paris. My ultimate dream would be to have my own fashion label that carries clothes, accessories, handbags and shoes. I will know that I will have made it when I have my own runway shows in Paris, New York, London and Milan. I have notebooks, scraps of papers, and napkins with sketches from the past ten years with my creations. They show how my personality has developed over the years, and I have expressed it all through my designs. I would love to be able to put them all together to create my own fashion label, and share it with the world. My wish is to be able to inspire people with my designs, and to see them showcased in magazines and storefronts.
I wish I could do it all myself, but I have been struggling with 3 jobs, and barely able to pay my tuition with the living cost in Paris. After 3 years, I've been learning so much, and now it's time for me to prove that I can do this in my final collection. Of course, only with your help and funding.
I have been interested in fashion since as long as I can remember. When I was three years old, I would host fashion shows in my mother’s bedroom. She would turn on the music, and I would create clothes from towels, scarves, or anything I could find in her closet. I would make them into clothes, appear from behind the curtain, and strut down the bed using it as my own personal catwalk. It was from that moment, I started dreaming of being a fashion designer. After that taste of the catwalk at an early age, I went on to have my own fashion show in high school where I created the entire show. I sketched out the designs, bought fabric, and got to see my designs come to life. Watching models go down the catwalk wearing my clothes was one of the best moments of my life, and one that I would love to create professionally. Whilst joining the fashion industry has been my dream for a long time, it wasn't an easy path to choose growing up. In the small town in Vietnam, where I come from, fashion wasn't a priority for most people. In order to afford beautiful clothes and fashion magazines, I would skip a meal or two. Growing up, while other children were out playing, I would spend my free time sketching and researching the latest international fashion trends.
After my mother's death when I was sixteen, and my dad always being on business trips, my sister became my guardian. She took care of me, and made all decisions for me. Therefore she choose Hotel and Tourism as my profession, and forced me to study this. She thought that fashion school was too expensive, and it's a risk to spend so much money for something artistic. I could've fought harder, and rebelled about it because I hated it so much. However, I knew I couldn't change her mind. I had to choose, either to leave the confines of my small town, experience a new life in Europe, and have a profession that might help me in fashion design in the future. Or I could stay in Vietnam for nothing. I could have never stayed in Vietnam.
In my first year of Hotel School, I thought I could quit at some point, but I wasn't a quitter then, and I am not a quitter now. I finished my degree in Hotel and Tourism to please my sister, but at the same time I worked hard to save up money to attend Fashion School someday. That dream was like a fire that never died inside me, and I realized that if I was going to make it as a fashion designer, I would have to achieve this on my own. This is even more true, since my father's death 4 years ago. For the past few years, I have been working in Geneva to save up for the tuition to obtain a degree in fashion design.
I have finally reached that goal, through a great deal of hard work, and I was now ready to take the next step toward IFA Paris. My ultimate dream would be to have my own fashion label that carries clothes, accessories, handbags and shoes. I will know that I will have made it when I have my own runway shows in Paris, New York, London and Milan. I have notebooks, scraps of papers, and napkins with sketches from the past ten years with my creations. They show how my personality has developed over the years, and I have expressed it all through my designs. I would love to be able to put them all together to create my own fashion label, and share it with the world. My wish is to be able to inspire people with my designs, and to see them showcased in magazines and storefronts.
I wish I could do it all myself, but I have been struggling with 3 jobs, and barely able to pay my tuition with the living cost in Paris. After 3 years, I've been learning so much, and now it's time for me to prove that I can do this in my final collection. Of course, only with your help and funding.
Organizer
Angel McQueen Tran
Organizer
Paris
