Meet Mastered, the London initiative fast-tracking the next generation of fashion talent

Hi Perri, what is the concept and motivation behind Mastered?

It’s really simple – since day one it’s been our mission to help creative professionals build a career they love. Everything we do comes back to that. More specifically, this year and next we’re helping our community become the new breed of creative and brand owners: the fashion industry is changing, fast, and to thrive in the future you need to have some fundamental skills – resilience, adaptability, collaboration, focus, and the guts to have big ideas and make them happen.

Talk us through the different courses on offer, and how you can become part of them?

Our accelerators are 10 months long, taken predominantly online, and give creatives insight, feedback, coaching and opportunities to help them take their careers or businesses to the next level.

We’ve created them in collaboration with experts working in the fashion industry right now, from legends such as Fabien Baron, Inez and Vinoodh and Carol Lim and Humberto Leon to the buyers, editors and agents who work with and represent both the emerging and the established. And as the industry changes, our accelerators do too: our syllabuses, mentoring and feedback adapt to exactly what is happening in the world today.

This year we’re taking almost a thousand art directors, photographers, stylists, makeup artists, hair stylists and accessories designers through one of our accelerators. Next year, we open this up to set designers and nail artists, as well as womenswear, menswear and childrenswear designers. It’s going to be epic.

What does it take to become part of Mastered?

We judge potential applicants on whether they’ve got talent, passion, commitment and attitude. Fashion is demanding, always changing and massively competitive, and we can only really help those who are willing to learn, are open to feedback and collaboration, and have the resilience to make it.

The first stage is an application process, where you show us your portfolio or lookbook and answer a handful of questions. Next, you take part in an hour-long interview with one of our admissions managers. They’re very nice, and will make sure this accelerator really is right for you – but they are very strict too: the application process is rigorous, and they need to see that you are going to make the most of the opportunity.

How do the Mastered courses differ from other schools or institutions, what makes mastered unique?

We aren’t a school or a university, because we don’t just teach. There’s personal development coaching to help you overcome issues like anxiety and confidence, opportunities for work that come directly from our industry experts, and you get to join a global network of like-minded creatives who come from over 95 different countries. One thing I love is that, if you’re part of the Mastered family, you can literally arrive in a city, sign in and find people like you to collaborate with. In an industry where it really is about who you know, we make building these much-needed connections easier.

The courses are delivered online, what value do you think this kind of learning adds?

It gives people massively flexibility, because means they can do it around their careers and lives. So few creative people work 9-5, so can rarely commit to a course which takes place at an exact time and at an exact locations: shoots over run, you get pulled onto a job at the last minute and it’s hard to fit traditional in-person courses around this. So many of our professionals watch videos while waiting around on set, take a mentoring calls after putting their children to bed or do upload their work for feedback on the way to client meetings.

Courses are delivered by a series of experts - how do you recruit experts and how involved do they get with talent?

We’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the industry’s most legendary, respected experts, and one thing they’ve all shared is that they are desperate to pass on their knowledge to the next generation. They work with us because we make it as easy as possible for them to mentor around their own chaotic, unpredictable schedules.

Our experts do everything from appear in videos, take mentoring calls via Skype, offer written feedback on tasks or share their knowledge in person at Mastered Live. I’m always humbled at how many come to us to find new talent after working with us – from Alex Box hiring her RCA show team from Makeup: Mastered to The Impression’s Kenneth Richard’s featuring a Mastered photographer on the cover of his bi-annual.

What kind of work can those on your accelerator courses expect to be making?

Every piece of work we set is closely aligned to the kind of work you should be doing in your career or business anyway. Setting career goals, identifying the clients you want to work with or the stores you want to sell in, building a digital strategy or a one-year career plan. There;s exercises to challenge your thinking too, such as creating an “anti-portfolio” to help you learn from your mistakes. Once you’ve done all that work, you get real advice from someone working in the industry right now, who can helps you understand exactly what you need to do to improve it and what to do next.

Mastered have professionals from all over the world on the courses - why is it so important for creativity to be international?

Because the best new talent isn’t simply found in the fashion capitals of London, New York, Milan and Paris. We’ve got makeup artists from Russia, menswear designers from Bali, art directors from the Netherlands and accessories designers from Hong Kong –  you find they have such interesting stories and references, and ultimately products and images, because they view the world through their own cultural lens. And when teams from different continents get together to collaborate on our briefs – well, that’s just brilliant.

What are people expected to take away and gain from your courses?

It’s pretty simple – we aim to give people clarity, direction and support. Clarity on where they’re going with their career. Help with how to get there, and support while they do it.

Are there any new plans or ideas for Mastered in the future?

A thousand. So many ideas! So many plans! I could fill the next decade with the ideas we have. For now though, mine and my team’s focus is on helping our community become the new breed of creative and brand owner. These are the people who will help shape the future, and I’m very excited to see what they do.