Our stay in London – a quick review
Céline Nina Hepburn, Bekleidungsgestalterin EFZ, modeco Zürich
My Name is Céline Nina Hepburn and I am 23 years old. I am currently a student at Modeco, Zürich.
During the second of the three years of apprenticeship, we were informed about the special opportunity to travel to London during four weeks of our summer holidays.
The minute they introduced the programme to us, I was sure that I would want to participate.
The plan was to visit the Oxford International School in Greenwich for two weeks and then to do an internship at the „London Academy of Bespoke“, where we would learn how to „draft and sew the english way“.
After two or three meetings at our school, where we got all further details and information concerning our journey and stay, we were ready to take-off.
Our trip began Sunday at 2PM – after having dropped off all of our suitcases and successfully checked-in, we flew to London Heathrow.
Everything went very smoothly and we got picked-up from a member of the Oxford Internation School. Our coach took us to the Brockley Jack, where our host-mums have already been waiting for us for a long time – due to traffic jam we arrived two hours later.
We were quite tired and went straight to bed, as the next day we all had to do a english-placement-test at school.
It was nice to have a look at the school first, we met the principal and the group activity leader introduced himself. He took us on a small tour around the area, so we were able to get to know Greenwich a little better and had a fair chance to orientate ourselves. After that, we all did the small tests.
The following two weeks were great – we all got split up in different levels and classes.
School was from 9AM to 12AM and then we only had the lunch-class from 1PM to 2:30PM afterwards, which allowed us to spend time after school exploring London on our own or even to participate at the many differens social activities the school offered.
We all got to know people from all over the world, which was very great and also had a lot of fun at Barbeque evenings or the legendary Boat Party.
We also had a great time exploring Camden Town, where a nice guide showed us all the nice places which a regular tourist would hardly every see.
There were many other excursions around London organised but we also had some spare time to visit some museums etc. on our own.
Our group leader organised some nice trips as well- the one to Brighton was one out of my many favourites.
After the first two weeks then followed the other part; our internship at the „London Academy of Bespoke“.
We had some difficulties to find it first, as we were sent to the wrong adress, but once we made it to Batersea Park, we were cordially received.
It was a great experience – we were thought how to take measures and draft our own pattern, how to work with all the different shapes and bodytypes and then how to sew individually. Never have I met such patient and ambitious „teachers“ before.
It was amazing being able to ask all kind of questions and to see how happy they were to answer them.
Our group even got the possibility to visit two of savile row’s most famous tailor-shops; Henry Poole and Dege & Skinner. What a chance! It was a blast. Everybody was so kind and happy to show us everything. I am still amazed!
Back at the academy, we got to meet a master tailor, who himself worked 40years at savile row. He helped us a lot and tought us the english way of tailoring. It was very interesting and mind-blowing to see the differences between „the english and the swiss way“.
To participate at this programme was for sure one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I can only recommend this to all other students who would love to get to know other cultures and learn much more about bespoke tailoring.
What’s there left to say apart „Thank you!“ to everyone who helped us feel so comfortable and home during that time.
Special thanks to our principals Denise Christen and Lukas Tobler, to our group leader Senol Sengül for taking care of us, to the Oxford International School Greenwich, to the London Academy of Bespoke (Victoria Townsend and Gordon Alsleben), Jacky Helfenberger and the organisations (akzent ), visite and movetia for making our stay such a great experience.
I will for sure try to move to London after the final year and try to do another wonderful internship or even an apprenticeship.
