While we’re positive all TriSight members are doing great things over the summer, the e-board thought it would be great to hear from our members who are interning abroad this summer. Although any internship is sure to bring a plethora of new experiences, our excitement for members who are taking their mission to find new learning opportunities abroad couldn’t be any stronger. This week, Taryn Goscinski, a second-year SPR student, shares her experiences interning in Cape Town, South Africa.
For 10 weeks in the summer of 2014, between my first and second year of graduate school at USC, I’ve been interning at the Cape Town division of Celebrity Services Africa (CSA). The account that I have been placed on is Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town, which takes place July 24th-26th. Since the beginning, I was given the task of creating this season’s “Designer Bible,” which is an 80-slide PowerPoint with all of designers’ brand vision, clothing DNA, collection inspiration, and any awards and images from their most recent collection.
This has been a tedious assignment as it entailed a lot of research, writing and organization. Also, many of the designers had trouble meeting their deadlines to turn in their information, so I spent plenty of time calling them and tracking down the materials needed. On top of that, I was given the task of creating CSA’s Instagram* and choosing which of the designers’ “behind the scenes” images would be featured and when.
In my “spare” time at work, I’ve been arranging our media partners to be dressed by the showcasing designers during Fashion Week, doing send-outs for other accounts, researching bloggers and packaging press kits. After the first few weeks of interning, we finally had our media launch, which consisted of 40 attending media professionals being chauffeured to three different venues in a Mercedes-Benz to experience the three components that make up Fashion Week’s idea of “Create Your Freedom.” The theme, which is celebrating 40 years of democracy in South Africa, is composed of art, design and fashion. At the launch, we will hand deliver the press kits on a USB to each journalist.
Fashion Week is going to be three jam-packed days of runway shows, interviews, behind the scenes viewings, a movie premier and a fashion advice segment. The schedule is tight and there is a great deal to organize and plan in advance. We are calling media to arrange interviews and as much coverage as possible. I’m very excited to see some of the designers that will be showing and believe it or not, I’m actually looking forward to the rush of it all.
On our free weekends I have gone to the top of Table Mountain, Robben Island, ziplining over a river in the mountains, to Cape Point, saw the penguins at Boulder Beach, gone surfing at Muizenberg, went on a township tour, petted cheetahs, fed monkeys and swam with sharks. My last weekend in South Africa, we are spending at Kruger, which is the biggest open land safari in South Africa and we are planning on going on game drives and also taking a Soweto Tour. Just like any place I travel to, there just isn’t enough free time to do everything that I want to do and the day to fly home is quickly approaching.
*To see pictures from Cape Town Fashion Week, follow @afi_sa on Instagram. To see more of Taryn’s adventures in South Africa, follow her Instagram account @taryng108.