Christiana Alagna

Christiana works for luxury menswear brand Ermenegildo Zegna in Milan. After securing an internship with the menswear team at Givenchy in Paris, Christiana is now taking the menswear fashion world by storm.

When Christiana visited Ravensbourne for the first time, the thing that appealed to her most was the creative energy she felt when she walked into the building.

She decided on Ravensbourne as her place of study because of the emphasis the fashion course placed on teaching practical skills, as well as the freedom it gave its students to forge their own path.

One of the main benefits that Christina experienced studying at Ravensbourne was the opportunity it gave her to grow as an individual and develop her own unique style.

When it came to the course itself, she loved the way it was structured as it gave students the chance to try their hand at everything. She said: “The pattern cutting and sewing lessons each term, the weekly research and design one-to-one, as well as group critique tutorials, are very rare for a fashion course. To have so much skill taught to us and so much feedback was a luxury”.

While at Ravensbourne Christiana also had the chance to collaborate with students from other courses. She considers this to be a massive advantage as it gave her the chance to learn from people studying across different disciplines and from all walks of life.

For Christiana, one of the highlights of the course was getting the chance to work on a live industry brief for Haider Ackermann in her second year. Her favourite year was her third year, when she was able to work on her own brief and final major project. Commenting on this she said: "It was so thrilling to be able to work on something entirely on your own and prepare a collection”.

Achieving her professional goals

The access the course gave Christiana to industry professionals and the high calibre of teaching helped to provide her with all the skills she needed to succeed after graduation.

Christina’s advice to new fashion students is to choose a course that has a practical focus, as this is highly regarded in the industry. She also advises students to pick a university that is diverse in both the subjects taught and in the cohort of students.

She concludes: “You can learn so much from just being at university and interacting with people from all over the world. It is about so much more than just education…it helps give you an open mind and is a way of life.”