Falmouth fashion graduate lands role at BBC Sewing Bee judge Patrick Grant’s clothing brand

After nurturing essential skills needed to excel within a fashion role, such as perseverance, curiosity, teamwork and collaboration, Fashion Marketing BA(Hons) graduate Mairead Frizzell has now landed an entry level role as a Marketing Assistant for Patrick Grant's clothing brand Community Clothing.

The connection began when Mairead interviewed The Great British Sewing Bee judge after she read his book Less, a Sunday Times Bestseller that explores the concept of how having fewer, yet better, items of clothing can increase our sense of wellbeing. Inspired by the book, Mairead interviewed Patrick as primary research in support of her Final Major Project (FMP), which reflected on similar themes.

We chatted with Mairead to learn more about how conducting an interview as part of her coursework resulted in landing a role within her chosen industry, and how studying at Falmouth gave her a solid toolkit of practical marketing skills to ensure she flourishes in her exciting new role.

As part of your FMP you interviewed Patrick Grant, can you tell us more about what happened?

For Christmas I received Less by Patrick Grant and I spent the holiday reading it shortly before starting my FMP. I had started the research for my project at this point and had been advised by my lecturers to undertake primary research such as interviews, questionnaires and studies. Remembering Patrick's book, I sent him a message on Instagram sharing how much I loved his book and asking to interview him for my FMP. Surprisingly, he responded and was interested in the interview!

I found the conversation with Patrick extremely informative and helpful for my project, which proposed the idea of an app that allows you to lock away a purchase before you receive it to prevent overconsumption. After the interview, he told me to get back in contact once I had finished university, as he wanted to have a look at my FMP once it was a completed piece of work. Once I shared my portfolio, he offered me the job of working as a Marketing Assistant for his clothing brand, Community Clothing!

It's a cool company; one of their missions is to sell 'clothing' rather than 'fashion', and they make and produce all their clothing in Britain, too. I readily accepted and moved north shortly after graduation to start the role!