Anita Racheva

The day after submitting a project is always quite euphoric. Months of work coming together and then suddenly you find yourself so liberated. No nap is better than the nap after a long period of stress and lack of sleep.

My course in Fashion Design is intense. Especially as I came into it, without much previous experience in fashion or artistic academic projects. You learn quickly how important it is to manage your time well, otherwise you'll find it very difficult.  The teaching staff at the University are all experienced industry professionals. They always have useful advice and are friendly and helpful. I really enjoyed learning from and interacting with them.

My favourite project was all about London subcultures and street style. That was the one where I first delved deeper into my research and I thoroughly enjoyed it. To be fair though, I managed my time horribly during the first half of this project, which made it difficult to complete. I'm happy that at least the final garment turned out nice.

For any new student out there, I would recommend making full use of the studio and sewing room. If you can then I'd advise you work on the stand for every project. I found draping very helpful to developing innovative and interesting designs and can help you to quickly visualize and test ideas.

If I was to do my first year again, I would get more regular feedback and work more on developing my digital skills in Photoshop and Illustrator. I would also organize my projects differently and do design development while I’m researching, rather than waiting to have a volume of research before I begin.

The most challenging part of this course is managing your time wisely and making full use of the resources you have access to. To be honest, I don't think I fully overcame this within my first year, but I did learn some valuable lessons.

Anita Racheva is a Fashion Design student at University of East London.