On December 9th 2009, a group of year 10 an 11 pupils attended The Clothes Show Live event in Birmingham’s NEC.

The aim of the visit was to give our students a vocational understanding of the various careers related to the Fashion and Textiles, Arts, Performing Arts, Hospitality and Media industry. All of the students that attended are currently studying on these courses at GCSE and we feel that students should be given the chance to see how their courses can lead to many exciting careers in this industry.

The Clothes Show Live houses a huge range of talented individuals in their own professions, from dancers and performers to designers and hair and beauty specialists and a huge amount of enterprise and business related professionals. Our students found this really inspiring as they wandered around exhibits, watched demonstrations by leading professionals and enjoyed a ‘Catwalk Theatre’ performance in which clothing and costumes were displayed through dance and performing art. Various Art and Design and Fashion courses were exhibited at the event giving student a real insight into pathways after GCSE and into future careers.

The Catwalk Theatre was a feast of amazing set design, choreography, music and dance performance, fashion, hair and beauty – not to mention the celebrities!! George Lamb (presenter of Big Brothers Little Brother) and Roxanne McKee (Louise Summers from Hollyoaks) Presented the Catwalk Theatre bringing along some of their Hollyoaks friends.

Students rounded off their day shopping before the long journey home - 4 hours!

Pupils were asked to complete an evaluation of their day and here are some of their views:

"I thought the day was excellent because we were able to see how artists and fashion designers work and how fashion shows are set up"

"The dancers really appealed to me because I am interested in both dance and fashion. When I say they combined both it gave me more of an idea of what I may like to do as a career."

"I thought the day out to the clothes show was excellent and fun. The actual fashion show was brilliant to watch!"

"I thought the clothes show was entertaining, busy, eventful and fun."