Madrid Retailing Course | 2014
I decided to apply for a three-week intensive Fashion Retailing course in Madrid, Spain. I’m going into my last year of International Fashion Branding course in Scotland but I wanted to add something more to my CV as well as to learn about the fashion environment out-with the UK. I have always wanted to study abroad but my finances were limited to stay for long period of time – so this short course seemed like a good option. Santander bank has a sponsorship with my university so they were offering scholarships to certain students so I applied and luckily I was given the scholarship to study this course which was an amazing help and covered most of my rent and living expenses. 
A brief overview of the course if anyone that is interested in applying. It is at Villaneuva university and it offers a number of different workshops and lectures with industry experts covering a wide variety of topics. The first week of lectures was based on vintage fashion, internalisation & lifestyle fashion then we also covered topics such as social media, celebrity endorsement, visual merchandising all with a specific focus on Spanish brands. The content of the lectures was really interesting and it gave you an excellent opportunity to network with different brand specialists – my LinkedIn profile definitely benefited! As well as visits behind the scenes of leading brands such as Cortefiel Grupo, Loewe’s fashion factory, costume museums and discount outlets. The course leaders Teresa & Julia were so approachable and helped with everything – including communication problems you may have with your landlord (I knew no Spanish whatsoever). The final presentation was fun, even though it was a tight deadline I really enjoyed the project and I was so happy when the course leaders were excited about our proposal and named my group the winners for best presentation!My main worry was that I had applied for student accommodation and I had heard some horror stories before I left and I was living with people I had never met. But luckily my flatmates were also from Glasgow, and we bonded really well and I have now have made lifelong friends through the experience. Outside university, of course, we had time to do as we wished as you can see from the plentiful amount of pictures! We went sailing in our favourite destination Retiro Park. Visited Vodafone de Sol for the main shopping district next to The Plaza De Mayor, and also Serrano street for the designer stores as well as Gran Via for high street shopping and Mercado de Miguel for a day filled with tapas and sangria. Went also went to the biggest club in Madrid – if you visit you have to go there its called Kapital. Of course, to finish our trip, we rode on a bus tour around Madrid and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and went Gay Pride! If you want to read about our day to day activities we actually made a blog of everything we did as part of the course – so basically a day-by-day guide – so you can have a little read here.
YOU ARE SO GORGEOUS! Not even exaggerating… That three week course also looked so lovely, I would love to go to Barcelona for my studies, but just like you my finances don't allow me to, maybe next year!
I've found you through that #bblogger & #fblogger Bloglovin' link swap, in case you wanted to know. I'm following now! 🙂
Aww thanks Fee! Barcelona would be amazing, plus it has a beach.. It's definitely on my bucket list of places to go to! xx