byte 23: business side of fashion with Alison Lowe MBE

Recorded 10 Dec 2020 - Jane is the founder and creative director of Unique Style Platform. She started her career as a womenswear designer, working for UK high street retailers (most notably Topshop) and has a broad knowledge of bricks-and-mortar retail, range-building and the importance of understanding the consumer. After a spell as Head of Design for a Canadian retailer, her love of forecasting and a desire to innovate and inspire, led her to senior roles at WGSN and Stylus. Jane has gained an international reputation as a colour and trends expert working with global designers, brands and retailers, to provide them with inspirational seasonal analysis and thought-provoking future trends. A regular speaker at trends events and trustee of FAD (a charity to bridge the gap between education and the fashion industry), Jane is a creative thinker with the ability to translate big ideas into commercial solutions. www.uniquestyleplatform.com

Recorded 3 Dec 2020 - Kyle leads the team of British Retail Consortium experts who report on industry trends and act as the benchmark for UK retail. The team produces a regular drumbeat of in-depth analysis on fast moving market developments and longer term structural trends. He has over 10 years of retail industry experience, with his most recent role involving running the insight function at the New West End Company, a fashion trade body. Prior to that he led the market intelligence function at Planet, a multination retail Fintech organisation.  https://www.brc.org.uk/

Recorded 19 Nov 2020 - Alison is a dynamic entrepreneur renowned for her visionary yet practical, realistic approach to building successful creative businesses. A creative industry thought-leader, she is constantly in demand to share her knowledge and advice on how to effectively build a meaningful, consumer-focussed, purposeful brand. She is passionate about supporting creative brands, entrepreneurs and talent, preparing them for the challenges of balancing creativity and commerciality. With a renowned reputation as one of the leading supporters of emerging creative talent, in 2017 Alison was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List and in 2016, was nominated and awarded as one of the Maserati 100 for the support she gives the next generation of entrepreneurs. She regularly writes for print and online publications and has written Amazon No1 bestselling books including ‘Start Your Own Fashion Label – the definitive guide’, ‘Do It Yourself Fashion PR’ and ‘Social Selling and PR – the definitive guide to building consumer engagement.’ www.felicities.co.uk

Recorded 12 Nov 2020 - Shakaila Forbes-Bell is a published Fashion Psychologist, consultant, experienced marketer, writer and founder of 'Fashion is Psychology'. She has worked with global fashion brands like Next, Sainsbury’s and AfterPay to help consumers understand the psychological significance of their clothing and beauty choices. She has bylines in renowned magazines including, i-D, Glamour and Marie Claire. Her work investigating the impact of racial diversity in fashion media has been published in the International Journal of Market Research.  FashionisPsychology.com

Recorded 5 Nov 2020 - Helen Brocklebank is the Chief Executive of Walpole, the sector body for UK luxury brands. Walpole's purpose is to protect, promote and develop a business sector worth £48 billion to the UK economy, and the organisation’s 270 members include Alexander McQueen, Burberry, Claridge’s, Bentley, Fortnum & Mason, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, and Wedgwood. Before joining Walpole, Helen built her career in publishing, notably at Harper's Bazaar and Esquire magazines. She serves on the Countess of Wessex Women in Business committee for the Duke of Edinburgh Award charity; is a Member of the DIT Trade Advisory Group for British Manufactured and Consumer Goods; and acts as Chair of the Consumer Goods Advisory Group, All Party Parliamentary Group, for International Trade and Investment. Helen lives in West London with her husband and two children.

Recorded 22 Oct 2020 - Lauren is a senior social media consultant at the digital marketing agency adtrak, based in Nottingham. Lauren is an accredited Facebook 'She Means Business' Trainer and runs online and offline events sharing Facebook and Instagram best practices and strategies. During lockdown Lauren has ran a number of online events via Zoom for Facebook's She Means Business campaign. Day to day, Lauren specialises in paid social, helping small and large brands reach their desired target audience using strategic advertising techniques whilst optimising their budget.

Recorded 15 Oct 2020 - PR Strategist Amanda FitzGerald, is known by her clients as The Ultimate Door Opener as she empowers them with her PR secrets on knocking down doors to long sought-after dream influencers and media contacts.  She is passionate about helping ambitious and inspirational entrepreneurs to self-promote with confidence and ease as she trains them on how succeed at media pitches so they can be seen everywhere. www.amandapr.com

Recorded 8 Oct 2020 - Dolly Jones is a journalist and digital strategist who edited British Vogue’s digital platforms for 15 years before graduating to Content & Strategy director of Conde Nast’s wider digital portfolio, including Vogue, GQ, Wired, CNTraveller, Vanity Fair and House & Garden and comprising a combined audience of 15 million monthly unique users and 50 million social followers. She left Conde Nast after two decades in 2018 to launch her own consultancy which works with a diverse range of clients across the luxury sector. She has a particular focus on sustainability, most notably having recently worked as Chief Content Officer for Eco-Age (having originally launched the Green Carpet Challenge with founder Livia Firth on Vogue.co.uk in 2009). She is a regular on the panel circuit, discussing digital transformation for brands as well as how the sustainability revolution can be approached by luxury businesses. She is a trustee on the board of the Advance charity which protects and supports women and children who are victims of domestic violence; and she is currently writing a book which is due to be published by Harper Collins next year.

Recorded 1 Oct 2020 - Leanna started her career working with her Mum at her home care business doing the admin. This started her entrepreneurial bug! While working within the social care sector for several years, she decided to open a bar in Birmingham. Unfortunately, this was not meant to be but she picked herself up and saw a gap in the market for an inclusive magazine and FROW was born. FROW is an inclusive fashion, beauty and lifestyle magazine. It is all about empowerment, equality and diversity. The goal is to give opportunities to the younger generation, in particular students/graduates during their studies and people from underrepresented backgrounds a place to showcase their talent, which will hopefully lead to successful careers.  www.frowmagazine.com

Recorded 24 Sept 2020 - Julia Robson is an award-winning fashion journalist, broadcaster and copy writer who works for global publications including The National (UAE), Grazia, Instyle, Elle and national newspapers including The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph titles, British Airways First Life and Country & Town House magazine. A former columnist on international fashion for The National, the English national newspaper of the United Arab Emirates, and Associate Lecturer at the University of the Arts and The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) overseas programme in London, the former deputy fashion editor of The Daily Telegraph, and fashion editor of The Sunday Mirror, graduated from Central St Martins with a degree in fashion. She is a ‘frock watching’ guest on Sky News (during Oscars) and BBC Radio 4 (Woman’s Hour). Commissions include covering the French haute couture season (July 2011) for Telegraph.com site and haute couture shows for The National (since 2008); and editorship of a magazine (2012-16) written by offenders at a women’s prison in a collaborative project for University of the Arts (funded by Sir John Cass’s foundation). This won the 2013 Outreach award in The Times HE Awards. She is a lecturer in Creative fashion communications and marketing at Regent’s University and UAL’s Central St Martins; LCC and London College of Fashion. http://www.juliarobsonfashionjournalist.co.uk/about-me/