Jessica Laycock

I am currently a supervisor in a Timberland store where my role has two significant parts; firstly, being a team leader and running the shop floor with up to 17 other staff. Secondly I merchandise the entire women's and children's clothing and footwear. I have no set guidelines and so depend of my natural flair for creativity to create enticing and brand reflecting spaces.

In Office I gained more insight into the fashion world. It was an exciting role which is enabled me to use new found skills from university such as trend and colour forecasting, as well as my pre existing skills (listed above and below). I have also been able to extend my product knowledge from children’s to adults, being able to use information of shoes, their materials and key features to ensure confidence from customers, which certifies satisfaction and a revisit.

As well as working in Office I also held a supervisory position in this independent company. I was unable to have full time hours in either establishment and so work for both. My role in this store had more responsibility that my other current as I was in charge of merchandising the shop floor and windows as well as assisting my manager with the seasonal buys. I was also a key holder and often ran the shop floor myself.

Shoobaloo is an independent children's shoe shop. Here I specialised in fitting shoes, from school to leisure. Working with children required patience and a set of unique communication skills to suit both children and their parents or carer. I gained a wide knowledge of the different brands we sold and dealt with buyers and distributors regularly as well as mechanising the shop and windows. Shoobaloo As duties from customer and staff care to weekly paper work. My manager was fantastic including me in stock buying decisions and training me up in how to sell and promote in children's clothes. She helped me to understand the market so that buying decisions where based on both children and parent necessity.

Working here for many years I learnt a great deal of life and career skills and all about customer care, how to speak and serve as well as how to approach more difficult situations. I gained knowledge of using tills and basic paper work as well as organising deliveries and sales. After customer care the most valuable things I learnt were about mechanizing, dressing windows and recognizing styles and trends. I found my appreciation for fashion and started finding my influences and inspirations in the design world, which inevitably led to my design course choice.