A couple weeks ago I had the amazing opportunity to intern with Elie Saab in their showroom. For fashion houses like Elie Saab a showroom is used to display their new collection to buyers and clients that come in for personal appointments to buy the new pieces to sell in their retail stores. My main job at the showroom was to dress the models as they went out to show the buyers the garments.
The first night I worked at the showroom I was helping set up the showroom which involved dressing mannequins, organizing scarves and labelling all of the garments. We worked from about 6:30 until 12:30 that night. The rest of the week we got to the showroom around 8:30/9 and were there till about 7:00. During the days we dressed the models which is more work than it sounds. The dresses are super heavy and fragile and the zippers were often hard to zip. My hands are pretty much destroyed after this semester of hand sewing and zipping zippers for a week straight. One of the models brought us tape for our fingers which was super helpful otherwise I would have been bleeding after day 1. We also had to make sure all of the looks were styled correctly according to how they walked down the runway. This was a little difficult at times because the scarves and ties often used were only meant for the runway so they didn't provide them to us so we had to improvise.
The showroom was absolutely beautiful. It was everything you would picture for a building in Paris. It had detailed walls and ceilings with gorgeous chandeliers and a balcony with an incredible view of the Eiffel Tower.
The people who worked there were amazing too. The Elie Saab team and the models made the week of hard work so enjoyable. I feel like models and many people in the fashion industry often get such a bad rep for being superficial and not "real" people. I have to say these women were not like that at all. They were very hard working, kind and smart women that I was very happy I got to meet.
It was really cool to be able to see what goes on behind the scenes at the showroom. So often I see pictures of showrooms but I never realized how much work goes into making the showroom look perfect and the work it takes to show the clients the collection. It was great experience to see this part of the fashion industry.