Class of resilience

Guest Editors: Ella Peers and Lauren Baxter

If we had to describe the Class of 2021 in one word it would be resilience.

Just one word. Resilience encapsulates everything it means to have the ability to bounce back and succeed, even when the situation becomes extremely challenging. As you can imagine from the events over the past year, we have taken the hurdles thrown our way in our stride, fighting back stronger than ever, in order to be successful in our degrees.

We asked ourselves where we acquired this resilience from; and concluded that it comes from the very nature of Fashion Promotion as a course.

New piece of software? We will learn how to use it. New people? We will network. New way of learning? We will conquer it. Being unafraid to try is at the centre of this course, to learn new ways of working – and maybe failing – but coming back and trying again; something our lecturers have encouraged and nurtured us to do from day one. This has allowed us to develop consistency within our skill sets across a wide range of software from the Adobe Suite and Final Cut to Excel and Google Scholar, and we have not stopped until our work was at the high standard we desired. All the while, being constantly aware and present as to how these skills transfer to real-life industry practice. You can access the full archive on our Instagram page.

As a group, we know and celebrate our strengths with each student having a specialty of their own – bringing a range of lived experiences and making us the diverse group we are. Whether that has been through Manchester Fashion Institute’s Foundation Year, freelancing outside of our studies, studying abroad for a term, or through our extensive list of students who completed placements at companies such as the British Fashion Council, Coach, Boohoo and END clothing. In addition, the diversity of work and approaches can be seen in Enziya Gateley’s MoMA x Germanier project, Kiera Murray’s New Fashion Media project being shortlisted for Graduate Fashion Week 2021 Awards, as well as Lauren Baxter’s photography project, which has been one of the winners for Graduate Fashion Week X W1 Curates Competition.

As hard as we have all worked this year, we couldn’t have achieved what we have without the amazing and committed Fashion Promotion team of lecturers, who we would like to give the sincerest thank you to. They have been utterly dedicated to not only helping us through our Level 6 studies and preparing us for the world of work and industry, but above all have managed to keep the feeling of community very much alive even though we have been online, making this year feel special despite the pandemic surrounding us.

Their hard work has meant that we have remained as positive and as forward-thinking as we possibly could. They continued to challenge us and guide us through the creative process time after time, which can be daunting and exposing at the best of times – never mind mid-pandemic!

The Class of 2021 are hard working, innovative and dedicated to their work. Thanks to Manchester Fashion Institute, we will enter the fashion industry primed with our core values of sustainability, diversity and true professionalism.