Katie Lassen

Todays lecturer, Katie Lassen, fashion stylist, consultant & lecturer in fashion & photography at Epsom, goes on to describe what roles a fashion stylist takes on and what it is that a fashion stylist does. 

She began working for a German fashion magazine, Sleek and to this day, Katie is working as a free lance fashion stylist working amongst international publications. Working her way from starting at work experience to becoming her own boss, Katie has learnt to grow up and has refined her directions in which she chooses to go, for example she is now considering consultancy & developing her own online/print publication. She comments that it has helped to work with a diverse range of commercial and creative clients so that you get a different perspective and understanding because everybody's views and ideas are completely different but not entirely wrong. For instance she brought up a story about a "sexy" shoot. Her classification of sexy was a woman wearing a mans clothing, baggy. Whereas the photographer wanted flesh & boobs. In the end, Katie liked his idea overall and the photographer was pleased with her input, therefore no one was wrong. 

Katie particularly likes working in colour and print. From the images she showed us, the information was full of print, maybe too much for the eye but it certainly achieved what she was aiming for during the fashion shoots and I certainly liked them. She said the basis of creative ideas come from the outside of the fashion world, rather than inside. It's not always fashion itself that is the influence but inspiring ideas that lead to it. Such as a song/band, film, landscape, photograph, etc. 

A fashion stylist works with magazines, brands, designers, photographers, celebrities & musicians to create style imagery.

She told us that as much effort as a fashion stylist puts into ones work, their ownership is next to nothing. They receive very little credit for what they've pretty much created themselves. 

When looking to apply, she recommended online opportunities, like ASOS. They choose freelance photographers and pay them around £200 for a day's shoot. As long as you have the experience and what it takes for their needs...

Katie completed work experience for fashion magazines GQ, Glamour & Vogue. She noted that it was KEY for you as whatever practise you decide to go into that you have experience in the subject area. No experience will get you no where, and sometimes one or two experiences is not enough for some. She said to try looking for work experience as an intern or fashion assistant at either a magazine, newspaper, TV show or assisting a freelance stylist.

KATIES EXPERIENCE

To begin with, Katie completed work experience for GQ, Glamour & Vogue after moving to London from completing uni. She became a stylists assistant and worked for free. She done this for several months. For two years she was a junior fashion editor of GQ Style. The transition from assisting to professional was a big step and began working with renown photographers and designers. She later become a freelancer, finding opportunities to work with new people and been given regular work taking on the role as her own boss. Next, it was fashion editor for Let Them Eat Cake. The images she showed us were very interesting and optimistic. Come 2012 she moved on into fashion director, moving up consistently on the scale learning more to part of what she wanted to achieve eventually... She was director of USED magazine. After all this, in the end she became a freelancer, consultant & lecturer in both fashion & photography.

Working in a core team has its pros & cons, for example magazines & clients will want to book you because it is easier for them to already have a team made instead of them searching for individuals and also if they had booked you before, the work completed may be of help to them again. A team needs to consist of a variety of: photographers, models, hair & make-up artists.

She also included about working for BIG agencies & how they have their pro's and con's... 

The money side of things was both great and bad. 20% of the takings are given to the agency but working for an agency means a lot more money because they are promoting you. But in the end, they take an average of 35% out of the takings. Some of the big agencies Katie mentioned were MAP, D&V, Art & Commerce.

Fashion photography is not about just working behind the lens and letting the fashion stylist do her job, in fact, the photographer needs to engage with fashion by looking outside of fashion for inspiration & networking.