The Dior video that teaches what you really need to make it in fashion

When I wanted to get into fashion, I was obsessed with Alexa Chung’s British Vogue series on YouTube, “The Future of Fashion,” where she goes around uncovering how the industry really works and how to break into it. I binge watched it.

10 years after that series aired on YouTube, I then worked at Alexander McQueen, YOOX Net-a-Porter and Kering, and I founded and now run the academy Glam Observer.

Dior just released on YouTube a video where Alexa Chung goes behind the scenes of the Dior Haute Couture Fall 2026-27 show, and it brought me right back to those moments.

I watch a lot of fashion videos as part of my job now, but when I read the title it brought me back to 10 years ago so I felt a bit emotional thinking about how I watched those videos then vs how I watch them now.

I always recommend to my students watching behind the scenes videos like these, especially at the beginning of your career, when you’re not in fashion yet. They give you a sneak peek of the offices, the people, the tasks, the environments working behind your favorite brands and collections. You’ll discover things you didn’t consider, and you’ll get even more excited to be part of this world (at least that’s how I felt when I watched them).

That’s exactly what inspired me to run the exhibition in Milan, to bring you behind the scenes of the fashion offices.

There was one moment in that Dior video when I really paused it for a moment and listened to that part a couple of times. A single question Alexa asked, and an answer from one of Dior’s most senior atelier heads that, to me, is the whole reason some people make it and are successful in fashion and most don’t. It’s not about skills. It’s about one mindset.

Alexa in that video goes around asking people working at Dior some questions but the ones I liked the most were the ones she asked Hong Bo Li, Head of the Haute Couture Flou Atelier at Dior: when you’re working with Jonathan Anderson, is there anything you say no to?

He answers: “In haute couture I never say it’s impossible. Before I try something I cannot say no. More challenging, more exciting.”

This is the essence of someone who is really successful in their job. Yes, he has skills. But it’s this mindset, this can-do, problem solver attitude that is so important if you want to work in fashion.

Look at how he says it. “I never say it’s impossible.” It’s so powerful that it makes you want to do whatever is in your power to make it in fashion. Whether it’s a hard task, a new project, a new challenge, you approach it with that same “no, it’s not impossible” mindset.

I grew up with the Disney series Kim Possible, one of my favorites. Her whole thing was “I can do anything,” and even her name was a play on the word impossible. That stuck with me my whole career.

Too many people get blocked at the first obstacle. And they look at other people accomplishing things and assume it came easy to them. Most of the time it didn’t. They were just persistent. That’s the whole difference. The best jobs, the best careers, the best businesses are not the easy ones, otherwise everyone would have them. What separates people is that they have the right mindset and attitudes.

During my very first internship, as an ecommerce intern working across Alexander McQueen, YOOX Net-a-Porter and Kering, I was operating with exactly this mindset. My job was basically all the operations that kept the McQueen online store running.

I proposed myself for things I didn’t have experience with. At some point we had to activate a function on the McQueen website in the middle of the summer.. My boss and manager was on holiday that day, she said she didn’t have a strong connection where she was, and everyone was trying to find a solution and someone who could take over and run that task. I was just an intern, nobody thought of me. But I said, I can do it.

The truth is that my connection was not stable neither, at least not where I was. When we had to activate that function I wasn’t in Milan either, I knew that I would have been on holiday that August, and my connection there wasn’t great. Furthermore as an intern I wasn’t required to take my work laptop on holiday like my managers did. But I took it with me knowing that if needed I would have gone to a place where the wi-fi was strong enough to make it happen. So that day I activated that important feature from our beach house, thankfully the connection was pretty stable that day..

If you know my story, you know that both the Alexander McQueen HQ in London and Kering in Milan offered me jobs, and I turned them down to start Glam Observer. But the point here is that the reasons why I got that offer is because of that can-do, problem solver, nothing is impossible mindset that I recognized in what Hong Bo Li said in the Dior video.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, from my own path and from the thousands of people I’ve helped get into fashion, it’s that this mindset matters more than the degree or previous experience you have. And companies know this.

It’s August 11th, everyone in Italy is on holiday this week. I am at the beach house with my husband, 2-year old daughter and parents and I could be off too. Instead I’m here working for a couple of hours, and not because I’m forcing myself. It’s that mindset again that keeps showing up.

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