Why I chose to pursue Fashion (and why it's getting harder to love it)

I am always fascinated by people and how they came to pursue their careers, infact i'm even curious about why they don't pursue something i'll think they're really good at and so I want to talk to you about how I got into fashion and why I'm currently in a love/hate relationship with it. 

I was always a very tall child, i'm the tall one in all my old primary school photos and at the age of 9/10 America's next top Model was huge on the telly and I instantly fell in love with the whole idea of becomming a model and wearing gorgeous dresses for a living. I'll be totally honest, there was no way in hell that little obsession was going to come true for me but I did rock a fake runway in my house whenever I got the chance so I guess we'll call it good characted building for a young mind with long legs.

So anyway that blatantly never happened but as my interest in finding out as much as possible about these models grew, I found myself on MTV watching 'The Fabulous Life of...' where they would show you all of the designers celebrities and models wore and soon I found my obsession with designers grew.

In school I was always good at Art and as I progressed to highschool I was presented with Craft and Design which turned out to be an even bigger success. Whilst Art at my school had a design part with it I always felt they went down unlogical paths and it wasn't so much about functionality of clothing but about how out there it could be which to be honest went against everything I felt about clothes at the time. Craft Design however was more my thing, functionality all the way with logical design so I took the ideals of my craft class and applied them to art and beautiful things happened. These two were definitely my best classes at school, I remember actually being excited to do the homework for them as well which was a rarity so I poured my heart and soul into them.

By this age my life was Vogue and E! I spent my evenings and weekends looking at models (some things never change) and started to find out about the world of online fashion blogging. I remember seeing Tavi and Style Rookie and having my mind blown at the knowledge of a 12 year old and really stepped my game up in the fashion stakes. I had to know as much about each designer as I could with the tools available to me and so I started my own blog and got to work. It was also at this age that I started obsessing with non-fiction fashion books. My mum and dad would find me in waterstones in the art section pouring over fashion drawings and begging them to buy me the books and to this day I still collect as much as I can if I can afford it.

University was where things started to get complicated, I went to a School in the Scottish Borders and studied Garment Technology whilst working part time in a cafe to fund a lifestyle I blatantly couldn't afford. I very quickly established that there were parts of the fashion industry I loved and parts I couldn't stand at all and the same could be said for the people. I was waking up at 5am to leave for class and getting home late at night blearly eyed and frustrated that the same process would happen all over again in under 12 hours time but regardless, I tried to stay positive and as drunk as possible in order to cope.

Fashion has a lot of pretentious people in it, sadly so did my university at times, especially as we progressed through the years and things got more competitive. I longed for the weekend and to go back home to see my friends and go out to a club, making the most of the fun times before going back to to 5am starts on the Monday.

 The classes could also make me feel like a salmon fighting it's way upstream at times. Pattern cutting was 1000000000% not for me. Too much maths and numbers and stress, not eough time etc. I hated it, I remember having to really psyche myself up in the morning to get dressed and face the fear of failure I had with it. 

Design however still gave me the satisfaction it had all though highschool as well as specification writing which was also a love of mine from my craft classes so I clung to these in my last year to help battle my hatred for just about everything else at the time. Whilst I had classes I loved it felt a million times better when I'd manage to somehow pull a miracle from somewhere and get B in a pattern cutting class. That called for a celebratory glass of wine!!

By this point my love of fashion isn't sounding too fantastic however one thing that continued throughout the years at university was reading online blogs, seeing pictures in the magazines and keeping up to date with all the latest on E! which I swear was and still is an absolute oasis in my life. I had to keep reminding myself that whilst some areas of the industry drove me insane and frustrated me, there were other areas I absolutely excelled in, I just had to find a job that allowed me to pursue them all after university was finished.

It was at this point I spoke to a careers adviser and found out about garment technologists and the work they carry out in the industry. I got a mentor in the form of the form of the amazing Lindsay McKerchar and finally it felt like I had a direction to go in after I got my degree, another target in the distance to aim for but I soon found out that a piece of paper wasn't going to get me the dream job I always wanted. 

I graduated university and found myself as a visual merchandiser at the store I worked at part time through Uni. For a while I felt elated that I'd gotten a full time job in the fashion industry doing something I love but there were days where I still felt like I could achieve more. My job became less creative and more 'point to a wall and paint it the colours they tell you' plus by this point I was starting to get really frustrated with retail in general and the lack of good wages/progression they offered you. I'll be honest here, retail wages are some of the poorest out there, If I wanted to really make something of myself it would have to be somewhere else and not in an environment where people would say 'You're so young, you shouldn't spend your life in retail.' That freaked me out a bit. 

I stopped sewing, I couldn't sit down and concentrate long enough on one design to make it into a half decent outfit. My new blog, which was starting to take off, was suddenly uninteresting to me and I stopped caring about  fashion magazines and TV that I just ignored it all. It wasn't that I
hated fashion It was just that by this point I felt I'd wasted 4 years at university to end up in a sector that I could have worked in right after high school and therefore I began to feel really down and  resented my job. 

(This is where this post starts to take a little turn for the better.)

I should try and end this piece on a high note and reassure other fashion students reading this that it's not all doom and gloom and I promise you I will. I may work in a job that I really struggle to love right now but I remind myself that it is relatable to my degree, it is experience in the field. I concentrate on the things I'm good at and have taken steps to get back to loving them again. I've found the names of every scottish clothing manufacturer and I'm sending them my CV in the hopes that I can get experience doing what I originally set out to do for university. I've gotten back into this blog so that I can continue to talk to you all out there and remind myself that it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to get to a place where you can look back and feel that you've really achieved something and this blog gives me that. I've also just pulled out my old sketchbook and I'm about to get my pencils out and start doing what originally made me fall in love with fashion - designing- and I'll be keeping you updated on that. 

If you're in a similar position or went through similar feelings at University leave a comment below because I would love to hear from you or hear any advice you have on how you tackled it and got to a place you're really happy with and if you've been a sport and actually read all of this extremely wordy post then I want to thank you for your time also!! I just want to remind people that it pays to look at your situation in the bigger scale of things and more importantly remember why you chose the path in the first place because that's what's currently keeping me going.

Broonylou

 

Visual Merchandising - Model Store

I'm finally back with another post focusing in a bit more detail about the job of a visual merchandiser, it's been a while since I posted any photos of our displays and hard work in store so this is the perfect opportunity to share with you what I've been up to!

So my job these last few weeks has become increasingly hectic due to Model Store judging. 

Model Store for me and my job is when we as a visual team work tirelessly to make our store look the best it possibly can for customers, staff and the like and after many weeks of prep someone from high up within the company comes out and judges us on several criteria.

My job as a visual merchandiser involves presenting well thought out mannequins that were pinned well, dressed appropriately to the stock on the mat, create various hotspots throughout the store at key sightlines to promote stock within the store and change over our windows to designer stock which would encourage customers to come into store. We were also doing general maintenance such as cleaning, painting and touching up mannequins to make them look pristine in condition. 

Aspects such as colour flow, power of three, trends and layout were all key in the process to ensure the customer journey was carried out consistently through the store and looked chic. 

Last year one of our big criticisms was that we went over the top with our displays and as a result they were too busy and detracted more from the stock within the store rather than enhance it. 

Below I have a whole bunch of photos to share with you all, showing you the standard we set this year and I'll describe underneath what we were trying to achieve to explain to you all in better detail because it can sound a little confusing. 

So here you go! My stores model store displays for S/S15! If we've done our job properly you should look at these and immediately think "oooh wheres that stock?!"

Our main Safari tend catwalk 

Priority One window, the blues and stripes trend 

70s hotspot 

Swimwear mannis, note that the blue and red colours flow up to the handbags at the far end of the walkway (colour flow) 

Our Wedding Gifts hotspot. Lots of power of three 

A home hotspot, again lots of power of three and repetition, good colour flow between the products 

A hotspot at out luggage department to promote sales 

One of our bed displays 

Another bed display 

Collection formal first catwalk 

Collection formal second catwalk 

One of the lingerie hotspots 

Ted Baker 

Lingerie pillar with a display on the top 

Another angle of the Safari trend catwalk (notice how the floral print is continued throughout the mannis) 

Rocha manni display, good colour flow through mannis to match back wall merchandising and the height difference creates interest 

A shoe hotspot 

BDL mannis

Blues and stripes hotspot at the top of the escalator (this continues the story from our front window into the store) 

Jasper hotspot (notice all the blue?)

Behind the hotspot at the top of the escalator (rails have been added to the clothes can be shopped immediately after seeing the mannis) 

Toddler boy hotspot

Girls hotspot at height to draw attention 

Swimwear hotspot, good symmetry here 

Young fashion, mannis placed beside each fixture wearing the clothes to promote sales 

Same again 

Same principle but beside a graphic rather than a fixture 

Tropical hotspot 

Henry mannis, situated at various heights to create interest, good colour flow 

Mother day hotspot in the lift area, lots of power of 3 

Hotspot at the bottom of the escalator with shoppable rails 

Side view of the hospot, notice the detail on the catwalk continues up the wall 

Mens catwalk, maroon and blue colour flow 

Mens suits catwalk using staggered height to create interest 

Purple catwalk 

Pale blue young fashion mens display at height 

Mens shoppable hotspot at the back of the escalator for our mac trend 

So you may have realised that a lot of blue was projected around our store this year, Dark blues in womenswear, teals in home and the brighter blues in our young fashion areas. This helps carry a shopper through the store and is pleasing to look at. There was a lot of good merchandising in the store using these colours to enhance the journey as well but I have no photos of them.

If there's a certain display you like or want to comment on leave your thoughts down below!! 

My job

Hey everyone!! Just a little update about my new job which is now actually not that new because I've been in it 9 weeks now.

So below are a few photos of hot spots and mannequins I've dressed inside our Livingston store, recently I've been put in charge of womenswear, young fashion and lingerie so I must be doing something right!! 

I'm learning an absolute tonne of new stuff with this job including the importance of sight lines, colour flow, customer flow and just the basic placement of mannequins and the way they face, all of which help our sales by targeting our customers and enticing them to buy.

No day in this job is the same and I'm really lucky to get to be quite creative with the displays, the head office of Debenhams give us set CVs that must be rolled out in all our stores as they have to have a uniform appearance about them but in terms of styling we get to have a little bit of freedom, especially when it comes to our hotspots.

So that's pretty much an update of my life as a visual merchandiser so far! It's really interesting stuff and my 9 hours day really fly in because there is so much to do every day.

If anyone has any specific questions they'd like to ask me about my job or anything I do in particular leave me a comment and I'll answer the best I can.