Cosmo fashion internship (update 7)

Hi guys! This was the big week we had been preparing for the past weeks. The sports themed covershoot with Sylvie Meis for our July issue! In my previous update I mentioned that I had to get the props for this shoot painted gold without any budget. On Monday I visited a paint shop and boy was I happy to see those things! Last week I was stressed out, afraid I would not find a racket on time, but today I could finally check this task off my list!

On the day of the shoot I was a bit nervous, because this was my first time working with a celebrity. In the end I had a super learnsome day, and I really enjoyed myself! I was so rewarding to see all the brainstorming, preperation, and styling come to life. My highlight was that Sylvie not only wore 2 pieces of clothing I independently requested last week, but also that she loved one of the dresses so much she wanted to buy it. I managed to get her the dress for free!

The whole process of a cover shoot is simply wonderful to experience. From brainstorming about the setting, to finishing the actual styling and starting to shoot, it is so creative and inspiring! But—of course there is always a but—the aftermath of a shoot is tragic. At least, for the intern! It means that I have to return every single thing that was borrowed without any help, and that I should write the credits. Needless to stay I was stuck at the office all day on Wednesday. On Thursday, however, I was on the road all day for PR presentations (see previous post).

Although this was very fun and learnsome, the time spent there I could obviously not spend on returning samples. I was very disappointed when someone (irrelevant) had the audacity to tell me to step it up a notch, while that person had no clue of all the work I had to do everyday!
#andysachsmoment Let me enlighten you a bit of how much it is exactly the preperation and aftermath of a shoot with Cosmo entails. And this is excluding my others tasks to perform, which range from creating shopping pages, having responsibility over the fashion agenda, handling other sample returns, and many more random tasks.

When a shoot's theme has been determined, my supervisor goes out to visit (at least 5) PR agencies, and picks out whatever she thinks could be of use for the shoot. This usually amounts to at least 20 pieces of clothing, and 5 pairs of shoes per agency, but also includes props such as skateboards, helmets, and stools. This all needs to be picked up and organized in the closet before my supervisor starts her styling. Because I am quite organized in most of my (office) work, I check all the samples coming in and going out with packing slips. I want to prevent situations in which PR agencies ask you after 6 months if you could please return that one bracelet they gave you some time ago, and you are like "wait whut". Obviously, this can take up some of your time dealing with the amounts of samples Cosmo borrows on average.

For designer items—which ELLE usually works with—one sends out a request, receives the package by mail, and ships them off again after the shoot. But after an average shoot with Cosmo, well... Everything has to be returned by moi! As tiring and hectic this process is, I have never compained about it though, because I know that I am doing it for a good cause! And seeing the results in the actual printed magazine makes all that trouble disappear in a second!

This week was more hectic than normal though, because we had another shoot planned on Monday! Not only was I in charge of the usual stuff like picking up clothes and props, I was also one of the stylists for this shoot, ánd most importantly.... A model! I was stressed out like crazy of course, because all the preperations for this shoot called for postponing of the Sylvie shoot credits and sample returns. To be continued...

X

Sefanja Rubina

Backstage image by sylviemeisnews @Instagram

p.s. I witnessed it firsthand; Sylvie is breathtakingly gorgeous with ánd without makeup on!