Sabrina Montagna Raso
Sabrina Montagna Raso
Sabrina Montagna Raso
Sabrina Montagna Raso
Sabrina Montagna Raso
(SHE/HER)
Although appearing glamorous on social media, breaking into the industry has always been an endeavour that has been incredibly daunting for me. Living in a creative epicentre, such as Melbourne, and being surrounded by many blossoming platforms, businesses and creators can similarly be equally as intimidating as it is inspiring. Along my journey through discovering my style and advancing my industry experience, there have been many creatives that I have discovered that have invigorated my drive and desire to hopefully break into the fashion and culture sphere someday. One of these creators is
Sabrina Raso.
As a 25-year-old creative reigning from Melbourne, Sabrina has recently taken her artistry international, making the big move to London to pursue her creative endeavours. She has described this as a seemingly natural progression for her career at this point in time, being the next step forward from her Melbourne-based ventures. I sat down to tap into Sabrina’s mind and experiences, in the hopes of understanding the thoughts, feelings and experiences that she has faced whilst working in fashion and creative industries.
Sabrina's Nonna (Montagna), an Italian immigrant, was a seamstress and designer. This undoubtedly had an influence on Sabrina, as she described herself as being “creative since day one, no doubt.” Her transition from dressing her younger sister up in makeup and having them pose and take photos in a mini photoshoot - to now - working for the likes of Vivienne Westwood, is impressive, to say the least. Her creative childhood spread beyond just runway and editorial, and also into the couture realm. At 12 years old, she had sewn her debut ‘collection,’ and recruited her cousins to model said collection for her first, very own lookbook. This, according to Sabrina, is “humbling” to look back on, but she can gladly say that she’s only grown from there - and that she has.
From these humble beginnings, Sabrina's multitude of talents and hobbies have expanded to drawing, painting, knitting, etc. Essentially whatever else she can get her hands on makes up the impressive repertoire of skills that she holds today. Despite her love for all of these creative activities, Sabrina says she finds herself exercising a sense of caution in mixing business with pleasure. She explained that she feels that there is always a risk in “monetising your creativity” - therefore, what Sabrina finds most important is maintaining a balance between her career, and her personal creative projects and endeavours.
Sabrina began her creative journey, officially, through her studies at the RMIT campus in Brunswick. Studying Fashion & Textiles Merchandising at RMIT for 3 years and she described the course as exciting and harbouring many great learning experiences. Despite this, she implores young budding creatives to remember that this is not the only pathway into the creative industry. Offering alternative gateways to break into the industry, either through “working your way up with a brand” or “offering internship placements and gaining experience.” Sabrina states that although she loved her studies, and many others may too, she doesn’t feel like it is “necessarily relevant to someone's success in the industry” and that it “may give you that first boost in someone trusting you, but likewise, people want experience in real-world scenarios.”
In having the chance to pick the brain of a creative that inspires me, I was incredibly interested in gaining insight into Sabrina's perspective on the present-day opportunities within the creative industry. Having done many internships at this point, Sabrina states that this can, at times, be the best way in. In saying this, she does also acknowledge that there is a really real possibility of this not being realistic for many students - and not to fret if this is you!
Through continuous work and exposure to these creative spaces, Sabrina has managed to utilise many of her well-deserved opportunities to further her career through unique pathways. She also stresses the cliche ‘it’s who you know not what you know,’ and that often once you break into the creative community, you often find and create opportunities through one another. In her experience, she found that Melbourne especially, has done really well in cultivating a supportive environment for both budding and established creative minds where, although somewhat of a small community, everyone wants to see and champion each other's success.
I sat down with Sabrina to speak to her in more detail about her career, where it is at the moment and her advice for young creatives wanting to break into the industry. Sabrina’s current line of work is freelance styling - whilst also working at Nordic Poetry, a conscious luxury archive space in London. The small team at the Nordic Poetry store means that Sabrina’s role is unable to be defined by a single title, something that she quite obviously relishes in. Her position encompasses roles such as styling, photoshoot and outreach production, social media content and strategy and many other niches. Her work for smaller companies is something that Sabrina notes as some of the most gratifying.
“I enjoy the fast-paced nature and excitement involved in those growth stages. I love [the] freelance jobs that I pick up, but they can come few and far between at times, so having a job that allows me to still be creative is a great balance.”
Upon asking how Sabrina got into working in areas such as styling, creative direction, and graphic design (to name a few) and what drew her to these areas, she noted that “styling was where [she] wanted to be, and [she] had all of these ideas for shoots” and “wanted to be able to have autonomy over the entire vision. So in that sense, creative direction was just a natural progression.” Despite her career focus currently on her freelance styling positions, as previously mentioned, creative direction is among Sabrina's overarching long-term goals. Circling back to her experiences within smaller companies, Sabrina’s role at Culture Digital Agency also saw her mastering countless roles under one umbrella. She recalls this as something she “really enjoyed” - and “felt like an extension of drawing or painting for [her].” Sabrina notes she still transfers these skills to other jobs, highlighting how immersing yourself in different creative niches and skills and often be interchangeable.
Sabrina’s recent move to London is something, I myself, and I’m sure many other creatives, often aspire towards when looking forward in their creative aspirations. She indicates that the motivations behind her move ultimately boiled down to the “feeling of not being challenged enough in Melbourne,” not “[relating] to the feeling of being in one place forever.” Being the perfect time in her life to take this leap of faith didn’t stop her naivety, Sabrina confesses. Although, this ended up being the ultimate double-edged sword. She stated that it “was almost necessary so that I didn’t have the tools to overthink the process,” and has resulted in what she describes as “some wild experiences that I wouldn’t have otherwise had.”
One of Sabrina’s thrilling experiences includes working for the infamous Vivienne Westwood. An experience, that for Sabrina, could only be described as a “surreal moment.” Sabrina worked for Vivienne Westwood as a Studio Assistant on a short-term contract, which led to her styling e-commerce shoots that can now be seen on their website.
“I was so lucky with the team that I worked with, that they supported my aspirations and helped me to have these opportunities. Similarly, it really was a lesson in you don’t get what you don’t ask for. Being upfront and unashamed of the things that you want to achieve is incredibly important. I met so many incredible people within the company, and got to speak to Andreas once or twice.”
“I remember having a pinch me moment, that I felt so lucky and happy just to be around these talented people. To have this backseat ride in watching this team’s hard work come to life was a really infectious moment. It really was an, ‘Ok I have moved to London, I’ve done it.’ Not in the sense that I had necessarily achieved my wildest dreams, or that everything was all perfect and easy - but that I felt proud for trusting my intuition and taking that leap of faith.”
Labelling this as her ‘most inspiring project,’ Sabrina mentions that being surrounded by all of the talented people that made up the project was awe-inspiring in itself. The ability to meet many new extraordinary people in the industry - creating connections for her career to progress even more rapidly - has been another major source of inspiration for Sabrina during her time in London as yet.
Despite such great success in her career thus far, upon asking Sabrina if she faces many challenges within the creative industry, she responded that “[she] almost [felt] like laughing” because the creative industry is “full of challenges, setbacks and exhaustion at times.” On the flip side, there is no doubt in Sabrina’s mind that the creative industry produces great rewards also - but she stresses to emerging creatives that, like any industry, it isn’t always like this. Sabrina opens up, further, on a challenge that she has been dealing with of late, being creative burnout.
“It’s so common and really should be talked about but I think it is really crucial to be patient and kind with yourself and other creatives in the industry. I always find it helpful to talk with my peers when I’m going through these phases. It’s ok to sit back and take in other people's creativity at these times, or contrastingly I often find shutting off from social media during these periods can help me to regain focus and my own inspiration.”
One comment that stuck with me during my discussion with Sabrina is upon asking if there is anything she would like to change about the industry - her response was for it to be “less elitist.”
“I once heard someone say that fashion is a rich person's game, and at times - especially when you’re starting out, I couldn’t agree more.”
“I think that you do have to accept that [breaking into the industry is] going to take time, hard work and patience, but I think my number one tip would be to pace yourself and make sure that you’re sourcing inspiration outside of your career too. Success comes from passion in my opinion. That translates and people can see that.”
As an eager creative myself, I asked Sabrina for her advice and tips for emerging creatives - to which her main emphasis was on “[trusting] yourself and the process.”
“The creative world can be very self-critical at times, but nobody is judging your journey as much as yourself. With social media, we see success at a young age more often, but not the hard work behind it nor does it need to be everyone’s journey. We have a lifetime to find where we need to be, so just continue working for people that inspire you, doing your own projects to build your folio and putting yourself out there.”
Further, patience during this process is Sabrina’s key, as well as utilising the people around you and always reminding yourself of your inspirations. Losing any ego you may or may not be aware of surrounding your work, is another piece of advice from Sabrina, as there is often so much help surrounding you, that takes the form of people with incredible experience in the industry - “it would be a waste not to take advantage of it!” Despite this being a daunting process, which even I know all too well, Sabrina states that especially in Melbourne, there is “such a supportive community and you will find care and empathy from those people around you should you choose to surround yourself with them.”
Sabrina’s biggest takeaways for people wanting to know more about the industry (in a nutshell) were that;
It isn’t always glamorous. No matter where you stand in the industry, there are going to be ups and downs in the things you’re doing. You need to remember all the tedious work behind each job - as they often make you appreciate the final product more.
Enjoy being in the moment - because you can always end up focusing on the next thing.
Talk to everyone you can, because everyone is doing something incredible. A small reminder, but sometimes we have to pull ourselves out of that main character narrative and really take in and listen to everyone around us. Working in a people-facing position has become “one of [Sabrina’s favourite things], allowing her to chat with everyone that comes in and find out that everyone is achieving the most incredible things.”
Moving forward, Sabrina believes she still has a long way to go in her career - which excites her.
Alongside her already burgeoning resume of skills and experiences, Sabrina states that she believes a natural progression for her career, moving forward, is working for a magazine or a publication, with a dream being to work for i-D magazine, in their London offices.
“One thing that I’ve learnt about this industry is that one job or interaction can take you in a completely different direction. For that reason, I’ve learnt that while it is still good to be ambitious, I am trying to surrender to whatever is meant for me.”
