How Life Skills Learned in College Help Start Career - Lulu Chen

In Chapter 6 of 13 in her 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, fashion stylist Lulu Chen answers "What transferable skills did you develop as a student at the University of Michigan that you’ve been able to apply to your career in fashion publishing?" Chen lists the life lessons learned while attending college at the University of Michigan that remain important in her fashion career. Specifically, Chen finds setting priorities, time management, follow through, organization, and people skills all relevant college development areas that remain central to her present professional roles.

Transcript:

Erik: What transferable skills did you develop as a student at the University of Michigan that you’ve been able to apply to your career in fashion publishing?

Lulu: I think the college experience is very important for everybody because I think it’s a microcosm of society. I think you’re at an age where your learning how to really integrate who you are and you’re developing your own personality and learning how you fit in. And you’re away from family for the first time and you’re living alone and you’re really becoming an adult and you’re learning how - what your responsibilities are without your family there. I think skills you develop in college benefit you in the future such as learning how to prioritize, time management, organization skills, people skills, communication skills and learning how to follow through.

Lulu Chen on How to Build a Fashion Stylist Portfolio

In Chapter 7 of 13, fashion stylist Lulu Chen answers "Based on your experience what’s the best approach to building a commercial stylist portfolio?" Chen shares how collaborative test shoots create early career fashion portfolios. Chen highlights collaboration as a cornerstone component bringing together young industry talent - often assistant-level staff - to do test shoots. These shoots help all parties develop individual styles and tastes that over time get refined into individual portfolios.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: Based on your experience what’s the best approach to building a commercial stylist portfolio?

Lulu Chen: Well as an assistant you meet other assistants on photo shoots and you develop friendships and you figure out who has the same aesthetic as you or same style and you do test shoots, which contribute to building your portfolio. Building a test shoot is basically the same thing as a regular shoot but on a smaller scale. When young talent comes together and contributes to a test shoot, they are exploring their style; they’re developing their tastes and they’re trying to develop a portfolio. So this is the time for them to be creative and to work together and to really collaborate because everyone is putting in their time and money and effort. It’s not necessarily something they got commissioned to do and so it really is about the collaboration.