Ciara McGarry – Upskilling Her Fashion Design Degree With Buying and Merchandising
Business of Fashion
We are absolutely delighted to share this inspiring insight from a recent graduate from our 2018/19 full-time Fashion Buying and Merchandising course Ciara McGarry who went on to complete an internship at Pamela Scott.
Ciara began her journey at Portobello Institute with a lot of industry experience and a related degree in fashion, holding a BA (Hons) degree in Fashion Design and having worked in the industry across a number of creative roles such as a designer for high street stores, tailoring and garment production.
Ciara admits that it can be a hard industry to get a steady job and has always been interested in the business side and felt it was something she could combine with her other skills in fashion and so enrolled on the full-time fashion buying and merchandising course at Portobello Institute.
“I learned so many new things and I enjoyed college much more this time around because I was able to apply the experience I already had when I was learning something new,” she said.
Ciara found the college experience and support to be great where the tutors were always willing to help and provide good insights into new things.
She also found the course content to be current with a strong connection between modules.
“The digital marketing module and utilising social media was especially relevant and are essential to any business these days.”
Ciara enjoyed the buying trip to Pure in London, the photoshoot for fashion styling and helping out with the green light window installation in Brown Thomas as part of Visual Merchandising, all part of their learning.
Her absolute favourite part of the year was being project manager for the student’s highly successful event FB43.
It was a showcase of new Irish designers that was hosted in the college and organised completely by the students.
“We even had our own pop-up pre-loved shop where the proceeds raised went to charity.”
Ciara completed her internship at Pamela Scott with future plans to keep working hard and get a job as a buyer and continue her career in fashion.
Ciara shown on left hand side of photo alongside one of our designers who showcased at recent fashion event.
