CREATE Restaurant

I also this week, had my first meeting with CREATE, our Marketing Strategy meeting for our fantastic new venture.

I have joined CREATE at a really exciting time at the minute too because we are near to launching our restaurant in August of this year, with the fabulous chef Richard Walton-Allen.

CREATE is a business that provides a place where people can rebuild life and hope, this place being work. CREATE runs a great business but with every penny made, this money goes right back into training, work experience and the creation of jobs for people who need them most. CREATE offer a great Employment Academy whereby a 12-week personalised work programme is given, in a safe, supportive environment to those who need it, those who may have lost motivation and confidence to get back into work after maybe a hard time in their lives.

The whole ethos of the CREATE brand is one that is honest, giving and truly caring to each and every person that walks through the CREATE doors. I worked for CREATE last summer and if you are a reader of my blog you might have seen some posts on FOUND- where I helped in all aspects, but specifically in merchandising the store, from the shop floor, to the window displays. I began working for CREATE because I am keen and confident in what the people at CREATE believe in, and I am a real supporter in helping others, and also working my socks off to enhance and build on a great company.

Our meeting this thursday went extremely well. In the meeting we looked at everything from our S.W.O.T. to our competition, to our commercial objectives and to our marketing and P.R, so as you can imagine the meeting was very informative, which I felt was very good for myself because then I could get a real insight into the whole process of marketing our restaurant from the word go. The restaurant sounds incredible and I'm extremely excited to see the end product, but I'm also very keen to watch the process unfold as to how to market, launch and open a restaurant. After the meeting, we all left with a job load of work to do but everyone is focused and excited about the next coming months. My task for the week is to really get under the skin of 'Corporates' and 'Bright Young Things'- these being key target segments in the City that we need to really understand for our restaurant. So this week I am going to try and organise some short interviews with these types of people to understand them that little more, to then really focus on where's best to showcase our restaurant.

Working with a great company is a real unique opportunity, in which I will grab with both hands and gain some real experience into marketing on a live event, to a nearing deadline. I'm looking forward to these coming months.

To see more about the CREATE Brand and it's new restaurant visit these webpages...


http://www.foodbycreate.co.uk/


http://www.createfoundation.co.uk/

New Images of my dressing at FOUND

I haven't ever really styled menswear before volunteering at BHF and FOUND, but I'm glad I'm getting some practise for future projects, in my last year, if we have to focus on menswear, I will be ready.

To approach my styling for menswear, I figured I should experiment with colour, pattern and style to see what works and what doesn't: I like the styling I have done for the menswear, but I still prefer womenswear, it's much more fun :)

Below are some images of this weeks and some of last weeks styling.






At work I not only dress the busts and torsos in the store, I dress the windows too. These images are, again last weeks and this weeks: my favourite is definatley the window with the teeny, gorgeous summer shorts, dressed with a bathing suit and a faded denim jacket (which sold before the end of my shift) and the two blue windows were dressed for a special visit we had wednesday, a photographer came and took photographs of the windows and some staff, to appear on the webpage and promotional material: so hopefully my windows will be seen by many :)






The scarf with this outfit is absolutely beautiful....I would love it please :)

FOUND styling

These are some outfits I have put together at FOUND.








Some displays I have styled at FOUND. My brief? Jumble Sale...

Summer Work

Designer Ringlit, sold at FOUND, Leeds or visit website here :)





So this week I began my summer volunteer work. Working in the British Heart Foundation, primarily dressing the window displays and visual merchandising, and also working at FOUND, a gorgeous and very spacious charity/boutique in Leeds.

I have really enjoyed my first week, the hours are brilliant and not very hefty, I have enough time to dress the two windows and four mannequins at BHF in my shift and at FOUND I have more than enough creative time and space to style up plenty of apparel, and may I say the clothing here is yummy and very good quality.

At BHF the process of working there is much more formal and it seems there’s more admin to be sort, the people at BHF are really nice and helpful which is good, and at FOUND it feels quite relaxed and my boss, Vicky is very sweet, kind and helpful.


I started the week at BHF and my first job was to dress our main window, which was hidden behind a huge rail of clothing which, every single time I left the window I had to come through, it kinda felt after the 8th time, that I really was in C.S.Lewis’ famous novel, except it wasn’t as cold as the snowy forest that Lucy finds at the back of the wardrobe.

My aim was to dress the window in summer attire and with the theme of the world cup, yes, that’s right the world cup. So with this I grabbed whatever red and white clothing I could find, I looked for pieces that would suit the BHF audience, specifically in Wakefield were I’m based, the target audience being mainly elderly women. So, I picked a look that a stylish, elderly lady would wear to the pub, maybe for a pub lunch before the match?? I dressed the misbehaving mannequin in a red jersey evening top, short sleeved with red ruffles running along the neckline, some white chinos, an earthy coloured necklace and then simply threw on quite non-chalant, a white blouse (you can’t really trust the weather in the UK so I needed a back up). I gave the outfit a dark brown, wicker material handbag to bring in a natural feeling to the outfit and something light for the summer. I must have done a good job because my shift was only 3 hours and within that time all the mannequins I dressed I sold something from, which is a good sign.

I also had the chance to play with menswear which I haven’t really done before, I rather enjoyed it but womenswear is much more fun to style. For my final mannequin I wanted the look to be aimed at the more younger customer and I styled the look however I wanted, I didn’t really stick to the world cup theme but I’m glad really because I think my final look was my best. I chose a floral blue and orange dress, with a loose denim shirt for cover up, rolled up the sleeves and gave the look some polka-dot wedge sandals and added another wicker bag (BHF had plenty) then whilst having a little look at the books, I came across a really nice looking cover of a book about enhancing your femininity so I put this with my mannequin- the look overall worked quite well, and when I visited the shop today the dress had sold so I definatley seem to be doing something right.

At FOUND, the clothing and the whole atmosphere of the shop feels much more stylish and modern. The music is much better (plenty of 80’s) and the clothing is much more on trend and fashionable than those at BHF, which it should be because FOUND are aiming at a different customer.

I dressed my first mannequin in a festival look- denim frayed edged, shorts, a faux snakeskin creamy brown patent belt, a vintage triangle sweater, short sleeved with a faint pattern on the front and finished the look with a vintage purple and bronze scarf. This is defiantly my favourite look of the week. I will upload pictures of these next week. The other looks included a summer dress with plenty of cute t- party necklaces, an evening look, quite trashy, with a designer made dress, red block bottom and floral top and to this, I added a load of trashy necklaces this looked quite cool; another look was a summer evening look- chiffon peach/ochre shorts with a blue blouse with a neckbow this look however didn’t make it on the shop floor because a customer snagged the gorgeous shorts before they even got a look in from anyone else; and my final look, looked at the trend of underwear as outerwear so I styled a black lace top with white lacing collar with a floral bodice, black and pink, and put silk polka dot shorts to really mix and match the look and give it an edge.

I’ve had a great time so far volunteering; before I started I thought that I might feel a little disheartened with my work because I’m not getting paid, but its something I love; I have free rain of clothes, shoes, accessories, I can use this time to experiment with looks and I basically play dress up for hours.