Role
My role is to ready students for careers in the exciting, dynamic and rewarding fashion industry. Bringing over 25 years of experience in the fastest moving areas of fashion retail I can bring the academic studies to life with real, work like experiences and rounded knowledge.
Career overview
My career in fashion started in retail shops. Unsure what I really wanted to do after graduation I took the retail role to pay the bills. I had always had an interest in fashion and retail. Working in a very creative and commercial environment with such an interesting cross section of people got me hooked. I progressed to a head office role in Merchandising where I had many happy and fruitful years, planning successful ranges and travelling the world in the search for new product and sources.
Merchandising provided me with a perfect balance of creative stimulation and business involvement. Working closely with Buyers and Designers on fashion ranges and having strong working relationships with other departments in the broader retail structure. Managing range plans, budgets and profit margin targets as well as stock and sample availability brought me into contact with Marketing, Finance and Logistics teams giving me a broader understanding of how successful Retail businesses work.
From there I moved into the supply chain where I managed a team of designers and product developers. Sourcing product from around the world to deliver profitable and commercial ranges involved travelling the world to meet with factories, fabric mills and doing inspirational trips.
The next step in my career was in the development of home shopping. The ordering at home using a catalogue or the internet to further the profitable development of fashion ranges. Exciting and new business developments like the move to trading digitally adds to the fascination of developing profitable, commercial and exciting fashion ranges. As the use of data and the digital world becomes more and more important in fashion retail, developing an understanding of how brands, retailers and entrepreneurs can harness the digital world is essential.