"I Work At Diesel!"
January 30, 2009
As you know we find internships and job opportunities for a great number of people, and many brands come to us when they are in need of talented designers and photographers. Some of you might wonder what it's like to work in an innovative international fashion company like Diesel, for instance!
We have been collaborating with Diesel since the very beginning. So, it is perfectly normal that fashion talents from ITS are taken into consideration by Diesel when they match Diesel's needs. But first and foremost, the Diesel Award - now in it's eighth edition - continues to be an exceptional way for the brand's creative team to come face to face with the young fashion designers who win the prize and examine their freshest and newest ideas. You might think that the offices and production facilities of Diesel are very different from the kind of relaxed and fun life style it communicates through its ads...Well, you couldn't be more mistaken! Though professionalism is obviously necessary to run a huge successful company like Diesel, there's a very relaxed atmosphere when you step into the headquarters. If you don't believe us you might believe our finalists': we've interviewed some of them hear about their experience directly from them.
Christoph Froehlich, a very tall German with rasta dreadlocks and an incredibly gentle and kind soul, won the Diesel Award hands down at ITS#FOUR. His work convinced Diesel so much that he was offered a work placement and remained there from 2006 to 2008. During this period he designed for mens apparel, did conceptual work on special detailing & graphics ideas and also participated in a lot of the conceptual and creative preparation for future projects. We asked him about his relationship with the team and his words clearly explain how much he enjoyed working with his colleagues and the team spirit there: "The team was very special and exciting! I met a great bunch of amazing people...so good and unique...sometimes I really miss it...I made a lot of good friends and although it is difficult to keep in touch, somehow we still meet now and then."
Teppei Sugaya is a special member of the ITS family and goes back to ITS#TWO in 2003, when he won the Diesel Award. After several other work and life experiences, he started working at Diesel in September 2006, mainly designing for the Diesel Denim Gallery, doing detailing and providing support for the main denim line. Of his work in Diesel he really enjoys the fact that it's in the countryside, which is totaly different than being in a big city and a precious thing as well. And his words sum up the Diesel atmosphere very well: he told us in Italian (a big plus of his Italian experience is that he's learned another language now and can easily speak the Venetian dialect very well) that the most important thing he's learned from working in Diesel is: "alla fine tranquillo..." which translates pretty much like "take it easy". It demonstrates quite well the lack of stress in the Diesel offices...
Another finalist working at Diesel, this time coming from our Photography competition ITS#PHOTO, is Maria Giulia Giorgiani, who did the MINI Clubman Tour in 2007 with Italian photography icon Gianni Berengo Gardin. She was recruited by Diesel in September 2007 as a graphic designer. It's now been over a year and Maria Giulia told us that it flew by really fast. She works on graphics for a variety of different things, like packaging, catalogues, invitations...she also works on concepts for window displays and many other things, as well as some photography work. Of her relationship with the team she told us that even though everyone is very professional, at first she was struck by the totally relaxed and non-pretentious atmosphere there. Everyone's very pleasant and there are a lot of opportunities to exchange ideas and build friendships.
Another finalist who's been working there for quite a while now is Sara Marini, finalist for ITS#ACCESSORIES at ITS#FIVE. Sara started out working on Diesel mens shoes. She was then moved to womens shoes after sketching a couple of interesting models and now she designs almost all of the sports & dress womens shoe collection. She has made lots of friends at Diesel and told us that every once in a while they organise crazy dress code parties where everyone socialises and has lots of fun. She is learning a lot at Diesel and her position gives her the chance to go in depth into shoes, but the best part of her experience is definitely the people (and the parties...).
Compared to everyone else, an ITS finalist that has been at Diesel for very little is Benjamin Shun Lai Ng, winner of the YKK Award last July. He has been in the Diesel environment since October '08. Benjamin's extraordinary creativity is being applied to bags and shoes for the Diesel standard and "Black Gold" menswear collection. He is having some problems with the language since he's just started and knows very little Italian, but he is improving. Despite the language difficulties he enjoys meeting with so many creative people. We asked him what is the most important thing he has learned up to now. He told us that there is a great need to think and plan things very fast and that sometimes you have a day or less than an hour to come up with a whole host of ideas. But the first thing that he told us about what he learned is that no matter what, Diesel taught him to really believe in himself, in his ideas and his design.
This all clearly proves that working at Diesel is different from what you would expect from a normal, standard job!
