3. The Second Intervention Launch and Feedback

3.1 Overview of Second Intervention

This week I produced my second intervention as an experiment in offline skills exchange. I exchanged transferable skills with two fashion graduates, Nai and Maggie, who had also participated in the first intervention.

Firstly, I taught Nai how to create a CV and used my previous experience in sales to help her apply for an internship at her favourite buyer shop. She eventually got the opportunity to work this internship. Nai taught me photography skills, providing useful tips on finding the right angle for a shot and how to take photos that are popular on the internet currently. Nai also taught me skills for retouching and beautifying images, including tips on retouching and depicting body and facial details, overall colour and filter control skills, etc.

Second, Maggie would teach me how to create new outfit styles, such as how to apply traditionally feminine elements to male outfits. A total of 166 original photos were produced based on this new outfit style, from which I selected 7 photos and uploaded them to my own social media, receiving more than 200 likes. The resulting and original photos are retouched in Figure 3.1.1 ~3.1.10. After this process, both Maggie and Nai were invited to a 25-minute interview with me. 

Figure 3.1.1 ~3.1.6

Figure 3.1.8 ~3.1.10.

3.2 Stakeholders and Participants in Second Intervention

I invited two people to attend, and the specific stakeholders and participants are described below:

Nai is a former fashion design graduate from Kingston University with over ten years of experience in the arts. She is a skilled painter, with excellent communication skills. She has helped two friends to take photos, and taught and improved their retouching skills, gaining them 100.2k and 10k followers on social media, respectively. She has strong confidence and self-awareness in her photography skills. Since her graduation, owing to her compulsion to stay and live in London. she has faced a lot of pressure to find employment. She is currently looking for a job in fashion in order to make ends meet.

Hichen (the author of this report) is a London College of Fashion graduate with a degree in Sportswear. He likes to share photos of his daily life and fashion outfits on Instagram and currently has 10k followers on the platform. He has previously worked in sales and has some knowledge of finding sales-type jobs which he considers to be a transferable skill. However, he needs to clarify his perspective about future job opportunities and wants to build a personal social media account. He is trying to upload photos and videos to his account and is on the lookout for unexpected opportunities.

Meggie is a London College of Fashion graduate with a degree in Women’s Fashion. She is currently applying for a postgraduate degree in Womenswear at the Royal College of Art. She has studied womenswear design for a long time, and she seems to already understand women’s fashion inside out. However, she nevertheless wants to work as a menswear stylist instead, so she was willing to participate offline in this skills exchange event.

3.3 Platform and Medium for Supporting Second Intervention

An offline exchange skills experiment has been used as a medium for understanding how transferring skills can be gained. The most important feature of this experiment has been to allow investigators to physically engage and interact with participants. This method can generate more deep implications regarding how transferable skills can be gained more effectively, and can better depict the demands of fashion graduates for transferable skills.

3.4 Intention and Goal 

The second intervention aims to discover how fashion graduates can gain transferable skills through offline and face-to-face exchanges.

3.5 Activity and Event allowing Users to Engage

As can be seen from the photo above, Hichen, Nai, and Meggie were all involved in this offline skills exchange experiment.

Figure 3.5.1

Nai taught Hichen how to find the right shooting background and how to adjust lighting (Figure 3.5.1). Hichen then used the model posing skills he had learned in the previous Intervention to pose in a suitable shooting angle. Nai used her iPhone to teach Hichen how to find the right angle, and assisted in his coordination of the composition of the whole picture. A total of 166 original photos were taken, including solo and duo photos, from which 7 images were selected as being the most suitable. Relying on experience, Nai taught Hichen how to use mobile photo editing software. She taught him to use 3 mobile apps: Meitu Xiuxiu, Xingtu, and the iPhone’s built-in colour correction function. Through a period of discussion, Nai assisted Hichen in the beautifying of each of the seven photos to a standard that both could agree upon. These photos were then posted on Hichen’s Instagram account, and after three days, he had received more than 200 likes on them.

Hichen spent several weeks working with Nai, teaching her how to write a CV; how to use the accounting app Square; and how to create a cargo list form. Hichen in turn taught her to maintain a healthy working relationship with her colleagues. Finally, she received an internship offer and gained recognition from her boss.

Maggie matched outfits with her fashion taste and Hichen’s personal characteristics, including his usual daily outfit and personality factors. Maggie also taught Hichen the skills he might use in styling womenswear products in the future, such as the skills of overall colour control or how one might improve the proportions of the human body to make the whole picture more coordinated. Hichen used his previous understanding of outfits to discuss and debug with Maggie, and between them they provided mutual approval of the final outfit. In the communication process, Hichen taught Maggie how to use detailed accessories, such as jewellery in the overall outfit shape, to make the outfit more distinctive.

The group concluded with a 25-minute interview, inviting them to reflect on this offline skills exchange and the implications it might have had for their future careers.

I prepared the following questions for the purpose of this interview:

• What do you think of this offline skills exchange event?
• How do you think this offline skills exchange may have developed or improved your skills? If at all, what kinds of skill have been enhanced?
• What have been the advantages and disadvantages of using the offline skills exchange event?
• Compared to the previous intervention about online fashion websites, which of these two trials do you think have taught you more transferable skills? What transferable skills did you develop?
• How do you think the transferable skills gained through this activity will help you find a career in the future?

The video of the retouching process is as follows (Video 3.5.1):

Video 3.5.1