Hey everyone its Ayla, Madalyn’s sewing intern for this past spring semester. I am wrapping up my time here as I wrap up my senior year at Mount Mary University. I am a fashion design student and as part of our curriculum we are required to take an internship. I had heard about Madalyn and her business through social media and some of her models, but it wasn’t until I saw her Flora and Fauna Collection debut at Milwaukee Fashion Week that I knew I wanted to intern for her.

When we first started talking logistics about what the school required and what I wanted to get out of the experience I didn’t really know what I wanted to learn. Madalyn was completely open to accommodating and tailoring the experience to what I was interested in, but I wasn’t too picky and was more interested in just seeing the everyday work that goes into running her business and making her beautiful garments. Lingerie/sleepwear was an area of design that I was interested in but didn’t have a lot of experience with, so through my internship I was able to learn new techniques working with specific materials and garment structure.

One of my favorite parts, I discovered, was putting the finishing touches on the garments by hand sewing on appliques or gluing on rhinestones. While it can be very tedious work and therefore isn’t the glamorous side of designing and sewing, I think we can all agree it definitely is worth it. I quickly determined that I liked the surface design aspect of creating a garment and it played into my eye for details as well. It also helped me to get a sense of why garments can cost so much. Someone will be willing to pay for it because you possess these skills and the patience to do it.

Besides debunking the sort of myth around appliques for me, Madalyn has given me a lot of good advice about how to conduct business and really market yourself to someone. Not only is it important to be proud of what you have made, but also it is important to be confident in yourself and to show that to other people. Through my final internship project she has helped me to build my portfolio so that it is professional and represents my work.

I truly feel that coming into the experience with an open mind was very beneficial to me. While we did set some goals for specific things I wanted to learn, I was actually just there to just observe and soak in as much as possible. Of course that wasn’t hard working alongside such a motivated and inspirational woman who truly knows how to be a boss and makes some stunning lingerie. I joked that there was always lace or appliques to be trimmed, but even in those small things I found lots of joy and inspiration and could not have asked for a better experience interning for Madalyn Joy Designs. Thank you so much for the amazing opportunity!