OUDF502: Collaboration w/ 3rd Year Fashion Student

A while back, one of the fashion students bumped into me at the college campus and he acknowledged me that he adored my sense of style in dressing. He kindly asked me to be involved in one of his projects that he was working on, my role was to be a model for his line of clothes. I couldn't turn it down as I found it as a way to be collaborative and a chance of forming a new relationship at a professional level. I saw this as an investment that will likely lead to more work in the future.

He finally contacted me to be a model for his interim crit session, in which I had to wear a pair of shorts he made from an interesting piece material. The session involved myself and three other models in front of a panel of critics, there was not much I was supposed to do except stand at various poses on command. The session lasted only about 10-15 minutes at most, he was thankful of my assistance and I was happy to have helped.

Out of this experience, I learnt that collaboration is important because collaboration is the key to success in so many situations. It not only allows you to focus on a specific element of the creative process, but it also brings a fresh set of eyes to a project and definitely improves the final outcome of whatever it is you're working on. In virtually all collaborative projects, new ideas and perspectives lead to something unique. Most importantly, collaboration helps form new relationships to a professional and personal level. It can also help gain new audiences to my product that I wouldn't have had access to at the beginning, for example the people that enjoy my work will start to notice the collaborator and his/her audience will start to notice my work. 

I plan on asking him to collaborate with me in my own responsive brief project to be one of the people that I interview.