Work Experience: Leeds Passion4Fashion Live Fashion Show – 21/09/12

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Passion4Fashion is an exciting new project that was brought originally from Manchester and settled in Leeds. They are a group of Housing Providers, Support Agencies and Designers dedicated to tackling exclusion through Creativity, Art and Design. They aim to put the spot light firmly on the difficulties young people are currently facing in both financial and employment terms together with increasing the confidence, motivation and abilities of everyone involved in the project. By engaging in a project that allows participants to get creative, have some fun and make friends, Passion4Fashion also highlights what can be achieved when organisations work together to provide people with opportunities.

Passion4Fashion worked with approximately 80 young people aged between 17 – 30 years over the course of this project and developed some amazing outfits created exclusively from charity-shop finds. Everyone involved in this exciting project received a budget to purchase clothes to be re-created and updated as well as some expert coaching from three established designers in Leeds. The vintage themed non-profit show took place on the 21st of September in the Leeds City Town Hall and was hosted by the Leeds Federation Housing Association and partners.

I have always been captivated by the fashion and make-up world and so I couldn’t wait to work at this event as it was a fantastic opportunity for work based learning and also an opportunity for me to contribute towards highlighting the issues young people are facing and stamp out exclusion. 

This was my 4th fashion show working as a Makeup Artist so I was feeling very confident and eager to get going! When I arrived, I was warmly greeted by a group of five other make-up artists (two college students, two freelance make-up artists and a representative from the Body Shop) who had all travelled from different areas to be at this event. The make-up artist from Body Shop had brought a plentiful array of make-up products for all of the make-up artists to work with guaranteeing free advertising for her employer. It was interesting for me to hear that Body Shop would be the fashion scout for the London Fashion Show and I found the idea of working with their products (which were new to me) a very appealing one. It was quite a revelation just how many products Body Shop actually produced.

I had a mixture of both male and female models which I always enjoy as it tests my skills more and stretches my experience. My variety of models had completely different looks depending on what matched their outfit, some asked for a specific look such as smoky black eyes with false lashes and others had neon bright colours on the face.

Overall, this work experience was a very positive one. I am now more familiar with a different brand (Body Shop) and will definitely be purchasing some of their products in the future. I feel very confident in assisting at fashion shows and feel exceedingly fortunate to have been lucky enough to gain so much work experience over the past year. Hopefully, I will attend more work like this in the near future...x