ANGELS OF TALENT: interview with Paola Pattacini, Director of IED School of Fashion of Rome

Paola Pattacini, after a life spent between fabrics and
fashion shows as collaborator of prestigious international fashion brands,
tells us about her work as Director of the School of Fashion at Istituto
Europeo di Design in Rome. A interview in which she explain how they are training
the next generation of young fashion designers, speaking about the strengths of
one of the most important fashion schools in the world.

I tried everything I could to become who I am now. I
started in 1982, and those were years in which everything was possible, there
was time to teach even in the companies. Therefore my training started at Max Mara,
luckily for me since the beginning with great personalities like Mrs Laura
Lusuardi, who was my first teacher and who’s still the fashion coordinator of
the whole group. There I was trained in the textile research.

They taught me how to work with designers and there I
became the responsible of a just-born company, Marina Rinaldi, and then of the
commercial clothing sector. I started very early when I was just 18,
immediately after the high school, because I studied something that didn’t
interest me. I wanted to do fashion. So at 23 I moved to Milan, because Mr
Ferrè heard about my experience at Max Mara and he called me and I stayed with
him until 2007, when he passed away. With him, I learned practically everything,
from the fabric design to sketching, working side by side around the large
table where all his amazing drawings were. 

The very nice thing that happened to me is that in the 9
years at Christian Dior in Paris, I was there as a reference person. I had this
amazing experience and, after Mr Ferrè passed away, I did a thousand other
things, but I’d like to mention only the biggest ones. I returned to Max Mara,
and then I went to Ermanno Scervino as head of the accessories office, because
Ermanno wanted a person coming from clothing design sector. I spent two and half years
with him.

To be honest, when a person grows up needs to do
something new. I’ve always met many wonderful people, but the time had come
for me to make other things and so I dedicated myself to education, which is
giving me so much satisfaction. First, I started teaching in IED when I was
still working for Scervino, then they asked me to do more, to run the school,
and I gladly accepted because I think it’s a new path for me.

Having worked, I choose professors who are great
professionals. I know their resumes very well, I know almost all fashion
companies, having friends everywhere. I know that my professors are exactly what
they say they are. I bring into the world of education the fact of not being an
academic, but a person who has worked, bringing the real working world into the
school. I’m continuously in contact with friends, alumni, former colleagues
around the world, it’s my business to know everything that is going on.

The first thing I always say, in all the meetings
we have before their registration like the “Open Days” or “Creative
Days”, is that in a style office usually designers could be 2 or 3, but there
are those who design fabrics, accessories, who makes embroideries or
forecasting. A thousand figures. So we offer courses for all of these careers and
when a person comes to us, we must be good at understanding their main talent and
developing it. Thanks to our way of doing things, I could say that they don’t
have problems in their working life.

For example,
we had a girl who graduated last year, who now is the link between the Givenchy’s
office in Paris and the manufacturer in Stra, precisely because we taught her how
to do this job. That is not pure and simple design, but that’s an essential role
present in all the style offices, because all fashion designers need someone to
whom explaining what’s in their mind to realize it. We teach this. 

We don’t teach only how to design menswear, womenswear or
accessories, but we create groups in which everyone has his own function and
works according to his role. I can’t say that everyone surely finds a job,
because a lot depends on how they present themselves and on their enterprising
spirit. But I’m happy and satisfied when they are not frustrated because they have
found different roles to express themselves without necessarily drawing.

They come to IED, having a first meeting with me, in
which I explain them not only what our reality is, but especially what is
fashion world, as I have experienced it myself. After that, the students are
divided into groups and we organize specific meetings for who wants to make
jewelry, fashion design or fashion styling. They are involved in real
workshops for all the disciplines we teach.

Then, obviously, there’s always something wrong for
someone, even if statistically I’ve noticed that this is only for who doesn’t
really want to work hard, who believes that everything is easy and has a vision of fashion as a
dream world. Who believes that Mrs Ferragni is only there for laughing and
changing outfits under the spotlights, while in reality her job is very hard. There’s a hard work behind the dream. I remember we spent the nights
working. One could think … how wonderful is Ferrè or Dior. But it means also working
for 5 nights in a row to prepare the fashion show.   

Now, for example, as network, we are focusing even more
on our libraries, so that students could have places where to study, with books
and magazines. We have already good libraries, but this is our next goal.
Making huge network libraries, with also an interchange between the different
headquarters. Because the contact with books is fundamental, to make individual
researches that goes beyond what you can see on internet.

When they present
their portfolios in the interviews, companies are struck by sketchbooks instead of only seeing
digital sketches and flat drawings. Also in fashion competitions. They want to
see works with something extra, having a path behind them, a personal research.
All this is fundamental. Now companies are asking for this.

Now there are many competitors in the job market, so you should
be able to know how to sell yourself, in the sense of knowing how to propose yourself
in the right way. That’s why I’ve also included Public Speaking among our
subjects, because students can make wonderful projects, but they also need to know how to explain them.

For
me the new location they found in the heart of the city is very interesting. There are
so many young people and I saw beautiful things on catwalks. I made fashion shows
all my life. I have a trained eye. Beyond the realization, which often depends
on how much money a designer could invest, sometimes you have to look at the
idea and the potential. In terms of ideas, I saw interesting things. I believe
that there are good winds blowing over Rome, even though IED never make a reasoning
closely linked to the territory, but in terms of networks.