My First Week Of Interning at Louis Vuitton

Securing an internship at a luxury french fashion house has always been a far reaching dream of mine. So, when the opportunity arose for me to secure a work placement in Paris as part of my year abroad, I was driven with determination to defy the odds and try to achieve this goal. After all, I had set it as one of my new years resolutions for 2019, and we all know how much I like sticking to my resolutions.

When I received my offer to join the fragrance press department at the Louis Vuitton headquarters in Paris, I was utterly gobsmacked. It all sounds very cliché, but I remember picking up the phone to which I had the lady from HR that I had first interviewed with (before interviewing with the department bosses) explain that I had been successful and the position was mine. I genuinely was at a loss for words and I have been in a state of disbelief ever since. Even on my first day in the office, when I was given my badge that adorned the Louis Vuitton logo, I thought it was all one big joke and that I would be found to be an imposter and subsequently be escorted off the premises for trespassing. Alas, I was indeed now a member of staff and I took my righteous place at my desk with my two wonderful bosses.

I was incredibly nervous to begin my internship; as anyone entering the glass doors of one of the prestigious French brands in the world would be. My main priority was to listen intently, to learn as much as I could and to try and assure my bosses that they had made the right decision in choosing me for the job. I arrived at reception, took the lift up to the second floor and made my way to our department, where I was greeted by my two colleagues. My first few tasks were to set up my windows login details (which involved me timidly phoning the IT department and going through the very confusing process of setting up a new password), creating my email signature (I still couldn't believe I had an email address ending in @louisvuitton.com) and just generally settling into the space.

The month prior, I had actually gone to the office for a day to have a sort of orientation briefing with the intern at the time. This meant that on the morning of Monday 6th January, I was familiar with the tasks I would be assigned with, which made me much more confident than if I was completely learning from scratch. Don't get me wrong, I can assure you many errors were made on my behalf during my first week, but I found that this was actually a good way to learn because as they famously say, we learn best from our mistakes. (Unless it's a spelling mistake in an email, then that, my friend, is permanent and cannot be erased and therefore you have to deal with the shameful consequence that descends upon you after you realised you've written "merci pqr qvqnce" to another employee. The pain is real.). This was especially the case as the computer keyboards in France are different to our QWERTY keywords in the U.K, and therefore I was (and am still in the process of) navigating the dodgy keyboard setup.

My bosses were very busy during my first week with preparations for the Mens Fashion Show that was taking place the next week. This meant that at points, I was left to my own devices at the desk and therefore had to use my initiative to find tasks that needed to be done. I used these opportunities to familiarise myself with the fragrances, the ingredients that composed them, their launch dates and so on, so I was equipped with better knowledge of the product we are dealing with. On my first day, I had to organise a shipment of a fragrance to go to the LV headquarters in London, and I was rather proud of myself that the process ran smoothly and I confirmed the delivery the next day. I enjoy the methodical process that I go through to complete my tasks, and whenever I have had questions, my supervisors have been more that happy to answer my queries to further consolidate my understanding.

Seeing as it was only the first week, there are still many things I am yet to do and experience, and it is only at the end of the month that I get my "ticket resto", so I am still in the process of finding a routine for my lunch break. What's more, next week we are moving back into the normal offices (which were being re-furbished, so we were in a temporary open space area for the first week), so I will have a completely different change of scenery, which will also take some time getting used to. All in all, I would say it's been a positive week overall, and even though my emotions have been somewhat all over the place, I can genuinely see myself settling into the job as time goes on and I will endeavour to work my hardest and get out as much as I can from the experience!

Here's to week 2!








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