I was still in design school when I got my first job in fashion. I was curious about the application process and building a portfolio and mostly just for fun I applied for a job at Mr., a menswear chain in Denmark that was looking for a head of design to create their first in-house collection. I assembled a portfolio and went to my very first job interview. Much to my surprise, I ended up getting the job. Suddenly, while only in my second year of school, I was the chief designer of a hyper-commercial menswear company.

I learned the hard way to not bite off more than you can chew. I remember crying from exhaustion after my first day trying to pick between 200 different checkered patterns at Première Vision, a huge, international fabric trade fair in Paris. But by the time I finished des...