So What Now? The Reality of Facing the Fashion Industry As A Graduate.

Coraly Langué speaks to Franco Appiah about what it really means when the cap and gown come off.

Against the backdrop of COVID, arts universities doubled down on checklists and revised course requirements in order to regain a sense of connection with their students and provide an experience as close to previous years as possible. For young design students the change of circumstances highlighted a sense of nihilism, with many asking themselves, ‘how do you create within these circumstances?’ This shift in expectation led to very academically driven perspectives on what student designers should be achieving. But, perhaps more worryingly, it also developed a chasm between what arts institutions deemed necessary skills and the fashion industry’s own professional requirements.

Franco Appiah is a young designer of Italian and Ghanaian heritage, who graduated from UAL’s London College of Fashion in July 2021. Having featured at London Fashion Week in the Spring of this year, Appiah’s strong motifs and eye for craftsmanship are garnering him well-earned attention, including a feature in Gentle Monster’s 2021 Optical Collection. Despite his steady success, Franco maintains some insecurities around undergraduate life and shares some of his feelings surrounding his entry into the fashion industry.

Coraly Langué [CL]: Did you feel prepared to enter industry after graduating?

Franco Appiah [FA]: I did not feel prepared at all because I was focusing on trying to graduate with the collection [we were making] so everything was a bit disorganised, because university doesn’t prepare you to go to industry they prepare you to get a grade and graduate. Everything outside of that is up to the person who graduates, so it’s up to me to, like, try to find jobs and those kinds of things and yeah. University may have given us classes on how to build a portfolio but that doesn’t really help. Maybe having a one-to-one with the tutors might help more because they know your work and how the struggle is, but we don’t have direct help from them. So yeah, I wasn’t prepared at all.

[CL]: In that case, would you say the undergrad curriculum is designed to produce functioning creatives, or is that reserved for postgrad and masters students?

[FA]: I feel like it’s more for master’s and postgraduate [students] because they get to know more about the industry, it’s actually designed for them, so that they know what they can do and what they can achieve within the industry. They have more talks with creative directors and industry professionals so having that helps them so much. And obviously they have attention from the media; let’s say if you graduate from CSM and all those ‘good’ universities for masters you straight away get attention from the media and that’s an advantage. In comparison to other people who graduate from bachelors, because we don’t know what to expect from the industry compared to them.

[CL]: As a result of that, what does it mean to be an undergraduate student? What are the concrete skills taught?

[FA]: I feel it doesn’t really mean anything. It means that you’ve got a paper, an expensive paper, saying you’ve graduated from university but doesn’t mean anything because someone can definitely not go to uni and still have the same knowledge and skills but doesn't have a paper to prove that they have those skills. So definitely being a graduate doesn’t mean anything because you learn after becoming a graduate, the world isn’t like what you’ve been taught from university.

[CL]: That’s a very honest perspective. Would you say you have any fears about your journey into the industry?

[FA]: I do have some fears because being a graduate who couldn’t do their internship because of the pandemic, it’s a bit scary because recruiters in the design industry are looking for people who’ve got experience, who’ve done their internship during the year. They’re not allowing me to get a job because I’ve not got experience in that kind of way. Designers and brands aren’t hiring interns that have graduated because they need to pay them. So me trying to find an internship is also hard [in terms] of not being able to do something that I’ve studied for and something that I love doing, so yeah that’s where my fear comes from.

At the time of writing, Franco is preparing a collaborative project with stylist and visual artist Seyon Amosu. You can find more of Franco’s graduate collection, STILL A MAN IN MY MOTHER’S CLOSET, on the British Fashion Council, London Fashion Week and SHOWstudio websites.

Images courtesy of Franco Appiah and Seyon Amosu.