Amandine Garcia Graduates 4.0 GPA To Pursue Costume Design in Film

International student Amandine Garcia is graduating this quarter with her Fashion Design degree. She attended FIDM on a scholarship awarded by the Fondation Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet in France, and is working hard on her career in costume design. We asked her to tell us about her FIDM experience, and this is what she said.

FIDM is on Hope Street and I feel like it’s just the perfect description of this school, it’s the best place in the world to have hope. FIDM helped me have hope even when everything in life was breaking me down. I am certainly not the same person now that I was before coming to FIDM and that’s all thanks to one person, Toni Hohberg, who created this place of heaven. I am so grateful to her. I had the chance to meet her last year, and she was so fantastic with me. After her encouragement, I just wanted to push myself to the maximum to honor her.

She didn’t simply create a school, she created a home—a wonderful place where you can forget about life’s problems and just enjoy growing to be your best self. She surrounded herself with the best team ever, the best teachers and also the best staff members.

Please tell her that I will forever be grateful and I will miss my home so much. Tell her that if one day I finally am a successful costume designer as I always dreamed, it will be because of her. She is amazing. I could write an entire love letter to this school, an entire book to say how thankful I am to the FIDM family.

I have been in school in three different countries, but the teachers at FIDM are “la crème de la crème,” as we say in France. I have learned so much. I know I have been the luckiest person in the world to have those incredible instructors and I miss them all already! Everybody was telling me, you must be so happy that you are graduating, but the truth is NO. Not at all, I am sad that I won’t go to this amazing school anymore, I loved it so much! I had the time of my life.

I have moved a lot in my life; I have lived in 12 different places but I’ve never really felt at home until FIDM. FIDM was my home and I am sad to say goodbye. It felt like going to FIDM was meant to be for me, that I was finally where I belong.

This school saved my life in so many ways, it was my refuge when everything was bad at home, or when I was stressed, upset, or alone. I stayed there as late as the school is open, staying most of my time in the five floors of the main building, and for sure after spending time there I always felt better. The only bad thing I can think about FIDM is that it’s not open 24/7 so there is a time when you have to leave the paradise.

I never believed in myself, never believed that I was talented, but FIDM taught me one very important thing: Believe in something, if not yourself then believe in your passion, in your dream and you’ll become unstoppable! Push all the limits of the world, even harder than you thought you were capable of and don’t let any failures, any hardships, any self doubts, or any people keep you away from your success.

Thanks to FIDM I had the chance to do the most amazing internship I could have ever dreamed of—an internship with the incredible costume designer Sanja Hays who is working for the next Marvel movie Captain Marvel. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had the chance to see her amazing team work together and it was fascinating. I met such talented people there, like the key textile artist Sharon Fauvel and the costumer Pamela Waggoner. I learned so much from them.

I am not gonna lie, it was hard to do this internship and in the same time go to class. The last week for my finals I only slept four hours in five days, but I was so honored and happy to go to this internship that my happiness just gave me the energy to continue. I graduated with a GPA of 4.0, so I was really happy to not have given up.

FIDM has brought so much to my life—I have become a new artist but also learned about who I really am, about my weaknesses and my strengths. There is something magical about this school. If you are are open to letting everything and everyone teach you something in this school and accept when you are wrong, you can be sure to leave FIDM as a new person.

One thing I’ve learned from FIDM is to never give up. Don’t act like a victim because there are always solutions—never let fear of failing or stress hold your back. I’ve learned about myself that I have absolutely no limit on working hard when I love something so much. Since my childhood, I have made every single decision with the only goal to become a costume designer for movies and I think FIDM has been the best decision of all.

Categories:  Fashion Design International