Long break
The Nouveau School of Fashion and Designs don't just teach their students about fashion, designs, and the business part of it, they also made sure that their graduating students had the opportunity to showcase their designs to the world.
The Nouveau graduation ceremony is usually divided into two parts and done on two different days. The first day of graduation is the certificate and award ceremony, after which comes the fashion show, which allows the new fashion designers to showcase their designs on a televised runway fashion show.
If they were lucky enough to be picked, the fashion show also gives the just graduated fashion designers opportunities to work with the renowned fashion designers and models from home and abroad that would be invited to be the judge of the show.
The students would be required to make a specified amount of outfits. The designs they choose to make would depend on the student themselves and how well they want to impress the judges to be crowned the top fashion designer of the show
The students would not be allowed to have outside help and for every item of clothing they make, there must be a video recording to prove that it was indeed their design.
Even though they would not be allowed outside help, they would be allowed to have two apprentices each from the 100 and 200 level students. It's a win, win situation, the graduating students get all the help they needed and the junior students also get to learn from them.
Interested applicants would write a minimum of three well-detailed applications which would be their first, second, and third choices of the seniors they wish to work with. The applications would be addressed to the seniors via the school administrative office.
The graduating students would then pick the two apprentices they would like to work with starting from the applicants' first choices to the third. It was a long process that usually takes the whole school hours to complete.
All thirty-two students of the 2020 graduating class were all currently gathered inside the school's huge hall, sorting through their individual applications piled on the table in front of them.
Abby was in the company of Dupe and Kamal their Head of Class. Who was also the second person she was closest to in the class apart from Dupe
"Are you missing him that much?" Dupe asked Abby when she noticed Abby had been stamping 'REJECTED' on all the applications in front of her without even taking a glance through.
"Yeah..." she answered half-heartedly, feeling dejected
"Ohh...is that why you are rejecting all the applicants without even going through their applications?" She asked unbelievably since she knew Abby had been looking forward to picking her apprentice for quite some time now
"Nope!" She answered in the same manner while still stamping rejected "...but why do I have so many applications for just my first batch anyway?"
"Who wouldn't want to learn under you, madame best student?" Kamal jokingly replied while giving Abby a mocking bow.
"Just call him already. Your countenance is so depressing it's beginning to affect me" Dupe said, feeling sorry for her friend.
"I cant. I'm not supposed to call him at work unless it's extremely important."
"Ohh!..." Dupe watched Abby rejects all her applicants from her first choice all the way to the third.
A total number of 170 students applied for apprenticeships. The best 62 were already selected by Abby's classmates except for Abby leaving the total of 108 applicants.
Abby collected the 108 applications that were deemed 'not good enough by her classmates and started sorting them through for her own two apprentices.
"So what's the big idea? Why are you picking from the rejected ones when you had the first-hand opportunity to pick the best apprentices to work with, I saw how plenty your first choice applicants were?" Kamal asked Abby. They were waiting for her to be done so they could go and submit their choices of apprentice together.
"I'm just giving my two applicants the opportunity I was not given when I applied back then. Do you guys remember our first year when you both were accepted and I was rejected by my first, second and third choice? My first and second choice said I was not experienced enough while my third said I was too young.
I'm not picking my two apprentices based on how experienced they are but based on what knowledge I can impact on them" she replied and smiled happily for the first time since the day began.
"See...I told you she knows what she was doing didn't I?" Dupe bumped her shoulder with Kamal, she had a proud smile on her face.
As they walked to the administrator's office to submit their choices, the two ladies were gisting while Kamal was discussing on his phone
"You know you could just go to him and spend the night instead of feeling miserable. Since he works all day, what's stopping you from working with him all night?" Dupe winked suggestively
"Yeah..." A smile brightens Abby's face immediately changing her countenance "why didn't I think of that before?"
"Yeah why didn't you?...stupid" Dupe said gruffly in fake annoyance poking at Abby's head. They both burst out laughing.
Back in the hall, they were gathering their stuff getting ready to leave when Joy walked up to Abby
"Hey Abby, a guy is waiting for you outside"
"A guy...what does he look like?" Abby enquired wondering who was looking for her since Tunde was busy at work
"He looks like a guy Abby, who do you think I am...your assistant?" Joy said sarcastically
"No, just the class peacock," Abby said and laughed which made Joy to stamped her feet in anger
"Stop calling me that!" she glared at Abby
"Okay, okay I'm sorry. I won't ever again" Still laughing Abby gave Joy a quick hug.
"You're mean" Dupe mouthed to Abby and they both smiled. They knew even though joy was vain, she was not a bad person.
"I hope it's not Mike..." Abby said as she and Dupe walked out of the wall "...he's been calling to see me ever since I told him I have a boyfriend. I'm just not in the mood today of all days. I need to get to my baby's place as soon as possible, don't want to be caught up in the traffic..."
