An interview with Mica Bihal

At long last, two posts in one week. Shocking. Hopefully this will happen more often. 

Today's post is all about my current university unit called interviewing. We were paired up with design students in the third year which, considering I've never thought about interviewing as a career, turned out to be rather enjoyable. 

This proves that work is getting done throughout my first year and I don't think this piece is too bad. However, I'm no professional just yet. 

At a first glance, I’m sure anyone would agree that Mica Bihal’s confidence is what stands out the most, a characteristic much needed being a fashion designer, a career Bihal hopes to be achieve. This first impression is backed up when Bihal begins to describe her current and final collection at Epsom UCA, ‘I’ve dabbled in mainly womenswear but for my final project I decided to bite the bullet and go for menswear, a big challenge for me.’ Her determination shone through when describing the risk she was taking showing she has no intention of wasting time.

When asked to describe her style, Bihal expressed her interest in tailoring and her love for the ‘suited and booted’ look, contrasting her casual floral dress and classic leather jacket that she turned up in. She elaborates though by expressing her love she has for the conflicting style of casual and smart looks much like her muse for this project. ‘Shakah Madoih is my inspiration for this project; he’s very cool, combining garments like tailored jackets and casual jeans’.

Bihal’s main focus on her final collection is tailoring yet, everyone has to start somewhere and she started with crocodiles. She laughs, ‘I just loved the textures! I took it further with the whole crocodile hunting, with the British hunter and combined that with the drapery from an African tribe, it all sounds strange but it makes sense to me!’  The style Bihal describes for her work does not fit in with any recent trend, she admits that she will never create an outfit just because it’s in season but whether she can see her designs on someone.

Later, Bihal tells me that fashion design was not her number one choice. Being creative was a characteristic she was well aware of even when she was younger, architecture was her dream back then. However, if sadly, the fashion world did not exist then she would have pursued a career in cooking, someone sounds like they’d make a perfect domestic goddess but she did not mention any future plans of being a housewife. As well as cooking Bihal ensures she has plenty of breaks for various hobbies in between work. ‘I’m open to do many activities to be honest, keeping sane is the goal’.

As the conversation was coming to a close, a more relaxed side of Bihal crept out as she described her love for travelling and her want to go well, everywhere. This is proved when she started to describe herself more, ‘I’m certainly open-minded and easy-going, my friends would agree I’m pretty laid-back’. She later confesses that laziness is one of her weaknesses, the complete opposite of my first impression. Nevertheless, Mica Bihal is determined to graduate, plans to hopefully intern and find a place where she can finally relax after three years of an ‘up and down’ university experience. 

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