Attending lectures, working to deadlines and having a social life at the same time is hard enough for most of students. However, 3rd year Fashion Textile Design student Natalie Walker did all that whilst managing to run the 2012 edition of the biggest event at Leeds University – the Leeds RAG Fashion Show – that turned out to be the most successful edition to date. She also had time to work as Head Designer for London fashion brand Gold Leaf, sleep, and go on nights out! Wow!
Last year was a busy one for you directing the RAG Fashion Show, working as Head Designer for London’s brand Gold Leaf, and attending your lectures. How did you manage it all?
Time management was a very difficult thing to deal with, with so much on my plate. The fashion show was such an exciting and ambitious project that I was constantly thinking about new ideas out of choice. I was very overwhelmed by how much there was to do, but it never became a chore because I loved it so much.
Why did you decide to get involved in the RAG Fashion Show?
I modelled in it the year before so I knew what the show was about and I was really excited to try out for a stylist position. However, one of my friends said to me that I should go for the director position instead. It was him who convinced me to apply and to send them my CV.When I got called back for an interview and found out that I had actually got the position I really couldn’t believe my luck, especially when I had never planned on going for that position.
In terms of fundraising I was really excited to be able to try and raise a lot of money for specific chosen charities. I had a friend who was doing something for People in Action and I knew a lot about that charity already so I really wanted to try and help her out as much as possible.
2012 Leeds RAG Fashion Show directors Natalie Walker and Rachel McLean
As the director of the show you had to select all the members of the committee, the models and get the sponsors for the show. Tell me about this process.It was really difficult as it took over 9 months to set up the Fashion Show and looking for sponsorship started from May. You can end up applying to over 300 or 400 companies asking for sponsorship and then only end up getting 3 or 4, if you are lucky, who actually decide to sponsor you. It’s a really tough process, but you have to stay strong and make sure you pitch well enough so that companies want to say yes.
In terms of the committee and getting them on board Rachel and I spent hours in meetings . I’d have a full day of lectures until 5pm and then from 5 until 10 at night I’d stay at University to interview as many people as I could, and even then we’d have to stay on and discuss who we thought was most suitable for the position. We also had to take into consideration the individual team dynamics and work out which kinds of personalities would work well together as a team. It was a really tricky thing to do.
Last year’s was the most successful RAG Fashion Show to date, raising over £12,000, which has set a very high standard. What advice would you give to this year’s director?
We set an aim at the beginning, for £10,000 and, as much as we wanted to achieve it, we knew that it was a big challenge. I would say to the directors this year that they should set an ambitious yet realistic target and to just be spontaneous with decisions, take risks and mainly just enjoy it. It’s a great experience.
Natalie at Gold Leaf launch party in London.
The Show would take all your waking hours but you still found time to work for Gold Leaf. How did you do it?
Looking back on it I don’t actually know how I did all of that work. I would get up in the morning at 6am go to the gym, and then do a whole day of lectures, interviews, castings for models and rehearsals in the evening. Then I’d end up coming home and doing a lot of work for Gold Leaf and going to bed at 3 or 4 am, waking up again at 7 or 8 am. It was a period of not much sleep but I was massively high on adrenaline from all the things that were going on, so managing my time wasn’t too difficult. However the demands from Gold Leaf were pretty huge.
I was leading a team of 10 designers andsetting them tasks and projects. They’d come back to me and I’d check their work and adapt it to what was really true to Gold Leaf and then set them off to actually make these pieces. A lot of the clothes went on to be shown at the Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model live catwalk. It was the founder of Elle magazine and ex-editor of Vogue who spotted our stuff and said that they’d love to have it on the live catwalk streamed on TV.
With such great CV it won’t be hard for you to find a successful job when you graduate. What are your expectations for the future?
I really enjoyed some of the past work experiences I’ve done with Gucci and with Tom Ford primarily, so I’ve always got links there to be able to go back and to work for them, which I would really like to do. But then I also think that it would be nice to keep an open mind and to be slightly more ambitious, I’d quite like to go on and do something more exotic that would test me further… But the future is bright so we’ll see what happens!