Fashion Blogger in Milan!

My experience has been amazing!
Nothing really about the internship that I didn't enjoy. If anything it was more like certain types of blog posts were less fun than others, but that's the same with any job. Writer's block was an obstacle for me when I wasn't terribly inspired by the project and I really had to kick myself in the pants sometimes to just get it done!
As for the Global Experiences parts of the internship I loved the outings, big surprise huh? Having Eleonora as our overseer was amazing, she's the best! Friend, tour guide (because she knows alot about the places we go!), guardian angel. We were lucky to have her, she's very sweet and kind and it was great knowing if we needed something or had questions she would be very prompt with her responses.
The schooling sadly did little for me, maybe it was just my learning style didn't fit but I regret not using that two weeks to just travel. The instructors themselves were very friendly though.
Another thing, the metro card, guys this saves us so much hassel! Never get rid of this! Ever!

Talking about my internship:
When I arrived and began working with my supervisor, a fashion blogger, we jumped right in to things. She had me up an running with all the log in's for her email, wordpress, pinterest, twitter, and instagram in the first few days and by the end of the first week I was keeping her calendar, reasearching trends, writing blog posts and going along for outfit pickups and events. I also helped her shoot a look book for a designer she was consulting for which was pretty cool.
Fashion week itself was a different kind of schedule altogether. Before fashion week it's all about the prep work like picking up fashion week outfits from press rooms, writing about what trends we will see in the show as well as keeping up the everyday work like shooting and writing about different outfits. We also try and lay out a tentitive scheduale as best we can before fashion week with the events and shows we know about before all the last minute (like 'day of' last minute) emails come in and we are scrambling to make sure they all make it on the calendar. Then it's a week of running to this show or that event, fighting for a seat amongst the seasoned fashion week photographers, and hagling with security. Exchanging pleasantries with PR, picking up press releases and goodie bags and doing all this while constantly updating twitter and instagram stories from every event you go to along the way.

After fashion week everything slows nearly to a halt for about a day or two, while we catch a breather, doing clean up work like retrning borrowed designer peices and organizing the million goodie bags with product and press releases. Then things in the writing sector take off and, because we now have so much material to work with our topic pile is overflowing, the blog post frenzy begins. So it may seem quieter because no, you aren't running around hopping on and off public transport til 8,9,10 at night, you are technically staying in but you're staying in because you have several hours, days of writing that needs to be done haha!

Working with this supervisor there's a role you don't find in a lot of work environments, she really wants you to be soaking in a learning as much as possible. It is actually a must for her, as oppossed to a lot of places where it is more 'here's the work you have done by this time, oh and hopefully it will help you learn something'. No she wants you to understand what you are doing, the reason and purpose behind doing it and how to do it well.
She also gives you a lot of independence, if you have a list of events to go to, you go on your own a lot of the time, and unless told otherwise you pretty much decide which order to go to them and when. You're job is just to make sure you make it to all of them and do the job right. So an important role here is to really keep yourself on task.

Patience, perhaps stemmed from years of retail work, has helped tremendously in this line of work and in a new country. Patience with the people, patience with the public transportation system that has an agenda of it's own and is at times utterly confusing, or on strike! Patience with those who send last minute emails but fully expect you to attend their event, and those events that don't start on time by like a whole hour. Patience with the workload, and with yourself for not having more of done.

My advice to any intern: Communicate, keep yourself in line and organized and be useful! Because it will all help you in the end!