CAMILLA CUZNER-CHARLES_ ACCESSORIES DESIGNER

CAMILLA CUZNER-CHARLES_ ACCESSORIES DESIGNER

The lecture was to be taken by Camilla Cuzner-Charles, a guest lecturer talking about her work and how she got to where she was. She studied at Brighton University, then moved onto higher education, doing an MA at the royal college of art, focusing on Knit. In her MA, she explored knitting to its potential, pushing the boundaries. sHe experimented with interlocking, tessellating, slotting, using different materials such as leather and paper. Her work never contained hardware, the shapes slotted together. She has worked for companies such as Paul Smith, Chanel, Habitat, Kate Spade.

Camilla did a placement year, whist at Brighton, at Liberty. She also specialised for DKNY knit in New York. She suggested how valuable and amazing her work placements were to get her where she is now. Camilla spoke of way it was completely different to a course, where you are encouraged to be as crazy and out there as you can. You have to learn to work for people, and respect the people higher than you. She highlighted the importance of industry experience, and how different it is from being a student to an employee. You don't have he freedom in the work place, you have to do as you are told. But this experience is vital, as it sets you apart from other students and potential competition. It also gives you an insight to what you may and may not wan to do. She discussed getting as many contacts from as many people as possible. 

After Camilla graduated, he sold one of her interlocking bags to Bill Amberg. She discovered through making this bag for the commercial world that her personal philosophy of not using hardware didn't work. It was too expensive to produce on a mass scale, and she had to make design changes for it to be successful. This is the point where she realised you have to reduce creativity in a commercial environment.

Camilla was a really interesting lecturer, and valuable to have and reference for personal philosophy. The information that stuck with me is how important it is to experience industry before actually committing- you may not like it after all, and there is nothing worse than spending your life in a job you hate. I feel in terms of myself, I would find it hard working for a brand. My personality doesn't take being told what to do lightly, and I don't think I would enjoy working for a company thats intentions are profit orientated. However I feel experiencing a wide range of companies and styles of working would help me make that decision.