Internship at Christian Dior -- Introduction

Julian's friend was a contributing editor at Vogue at the time, and had suggested through Julian that I keep a diary of my internship there, for possible inclusion in the magazine. That didn't happen, but I'm glad I kept a record of my internship.

Much of my experience involved just trying to figure out what was happening. There were several reasons for my confusion. First of all, I had not yet had any formal training in fashion aside from my very brief experience at Marc Jacobs, which, in comparison to Dior, was still a small enterprise. Secondly, my French was lacking and while Galliano, his head assistants, and several of the other assistant designers were British or at least English-speaking, much of the design studio and other employees as well as interns with whom I interacted on a daily basis were either French of spoke French more fluently than English. Thirdly, Dior is a massive organization. I was there to assist with the haute couture collection, but at the same time there were people working on the pret-a-porter, accessories, and lingerie collections. To further complicate things, Galliano had his own design studio for his eponymous label in the 20th arrondissement, whose designers and interns also came to help out in the Dior studio. There were so many things going on at the same time that it was hard to keep track and really follow everything.

When I started my internship on June 10th, there were already three other interns, all French. Another joined a week or so later. Three had gotten their internships through some sort of connection (like me), but one had gotten her internship through her own merit, having just finished her schooling at the Chambre Syndicale. Her name was Karin and she was very friendly. She had been there for a few months and helped me to piece together what was happening.

At the time, John Galliano was one of my favorite designers (I still respect him but right now my favorite designers are probably Nicolas Ghesquiere and Christopher Kane). So for me, seeing him was like seeing a rock star. We would see him from time to time and he was very friendly. I vividly remember him in a pink tank, pink bandana, and hair in two braids like a schoolgirl. I got to speak to him on a couple of occasions, once when I was organizing books for him and another time when I went down in the tiny elevator with him (there was a regular sized elevator and there was a small two-person sized elevator). This is the conversation we had:

me: I just wanted to say, I want to be like you when I grow up!
JG: (laughs) You will! (we get off the elevator) See you later!

Right. One of the best assignments I was given involved hopping in a sleek black BMW to drive to Galliano's beautiful residence in the Marais. I walked inside the front foyer, almost attacked by a tiny barking (but harmless) dog, and dropped off the show soundtrack for him. However, most of the assignments were standard intern bitchwork: making (lots of) photocopies, which was necessary for keeping everyone in the studio and production staff on the same page (literally), fetching McDonalds/coffee/shoe polish/thongs/fabric swatches/wifebeaters/spray paint/anything and everything, ironing fabric tape, dyeing said fabric tape, cutting out patterns and pieces of fabric, sewing/embroidering small things, etc.

I leave you with this image: