Guest Lecturer: Katy Lassen

Katy Lassen is a freelance fashion stylist and part time lecturer at University of the Creative Arts in Epsom. She studied french and media and had no formal creative training.

To gain experience Katy approached Vogue and was turned away for having ‘no experience.' Ironic.  So she added a two week work experience with her step father, a journalist, to her CV and went back to vogue, where she completed a months work experience.

Once she had finished her work there she approached Glamour and later GQ whom she also completed work experience with. She emphasised how grateful she was for putting money aside during university to keep her afloat whilst working for free. I have taken note of this and will try to do the same. (No promises.)

She started by giving us an introduction to fashion styling, and wanted us to realise that fashion photography, and fashion styling, is all about advertising.

She told us that Editorials for magazines are often unpaid or have a small budget to cover costs. Often the photographer would put their own money towards the production. However this will often pay off as they are the stories which would make up the bulk of our portfolio, which promotes us to get commercial work.

Working for free is something which is hard to accept however Katy assured us that working for free is vital for us to build our portfolio and that if we wont work for free, that someone else will. 

Another point Katy made to us was that is it really important to build working relationships with people in different lines of work to us; such as stylists, as magazines and clients will often ‘book your team’ if they see a shot which they would like reciprocated for their own advertising purposes. This makes the creative process easier if we know people and have people that we work with a lot. We were told to acknowledge that is it a commercial work and that we will be collaborating with others.

Being represented by an agency was a process which Katy described as either being highly beneficial or our worst nightmare. If we are ever represented she said to ensure that they understand us and they way in which we work, or they will put us in for jobs we will not enjoy. Examples of agencies Katy gave us were, CLM, Art and Commerce, D&V, Smile Too, Map and Art Partner.

I found Katys work very inspiring and I want to give myself a greater fashion background. I was also intrigued by Let Them Eat Cake, a fashion publication dedicated to championing the new generation of creative minds.