Top of the Shops

 

TOP OF THE SHOPS

 

Thursday 11^th October was the day when a cavalcade of 30 eager students drawn from Barking College and Barking Abbey School headed up to the mecca of British fashion just behind Oxford Street. When there, they were presented with the unique opportunity to go behind the scenes of one of the country’s leading fashion retailer, and to have their products included in the Spring and Summer 2008 collection.

 

Top Shop invited these highly talented young people to their Head Office and launched a competition in which seven newly created brand teams were challenged to come up with unique designs for a T-shirt customised to meet the needs of their core customer market.

 

Caren Downie, Buying Director for Top Shop, announced the competition, the first of it’s kind in the UK to a rapt audience, motivated by the reality that in six months time, one of their products would be on public sale in the flagship Top Shop store in Oxford Street as well as in the Unique and Boutique sections of other key outlets across London. The students now have until 29^th November to design and develop their designs, and come up with a protoype that they will then present to a panel of senior fashion industry professionals at the Top Shop HQ in Berners Street.  And one week later, the winner will be announced.

 

The main buyer for Unique and Boutique, Rachel Proud – who shared in the briefing, and handed out sample garments to be used as a guide to new inspired ideas – was bombarded with questions from many of the students, who could not wait to get going, and benefit from the tour behind the secnes at 214 Oxford Street, accompanied by two seasoned Style Advisors.

 

“I was most impressed by the range of questions coming from the floor,” said Downie, “The students demonstrated a real and early depth of understanding of what is required, and a clear commitment to wanting to succeed. That is really encouraging”

 

This exciting prospect is all part of a wider series of workshops being delivered at Barking College this autumn by Fashion Enter, a not for profit organisation which has recently moved into the area because it has identified Barking and Dagenham as an area rich in potential, and ripe for showcasing the design talent of its local residents.

 

Jenny Holloway, Director of Fashion Enter said: “I am absolutely excited by the quality of young talent I have experienced since opening my second Enter Boutique in Vicarage Field in September. But this offer from Top Shop is absolutely fantatstic, and I can’t wait to see the outcome of the competition, and to have a new range of barking T-shirts available for sale in Enter as well as in  Top Shop”

 

The Fashion Enter initiative is the latest in a series of collaborations over the past two years developed by the Council’s Regeneration Department in which students from the local secondary schools and colleges have been introduced and exposed to a wide range progressive pathways to employment and emploiyment opportunity right across the spectrum of creative, cultural, and media industries.

 

The Fashion-Enter project is generously supported and sponsored by the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation; and the programme is managed by the Skills, Learning, and Enterprise Division within the Council’s Regeneratiuon Department

 

ENDS

 

 

Derek Levy

Principal Regeneration Officer: Barking Town Centre

Employment & Enterprise Development Group

 

Skills, Learning, and Enterprise Division

Department of Regeneration

Room 301: Barking Town Hall

1 Town Square

Barking, Essex IG11 7LU

 

Tel: 020 8227 5343

Mob: 07968 511 919

Fax: 020 8724 8094

 

Email: derek.levy@lbbd.gov.uk

Web: www.barking-dagenham.gov.uk