In this month’s feature on City College Norwich, Clare Burgess finds out more about ego, the boutique that is also a learning opportunity
As the spring/summer season slowly draws to a close, Norfolk’s clothing retailers are getting ready to stock their shop floors with next season’s trends in preparation for eager high street shoppers who will soon be on the hunt for the perfect autumn/winter look. Creating unique and on-trend looks each season can be quite challenging, and the overwhelming choice of new colours, cuts and patterns can lead some customers to opt for purchasing large numbers of cheaper garments that might not accentuate their best features.
To help shoppers find a trendy, flattering and affordable new look, City College Norwich’s buy and sell fashion boutique, ego, which sells designer and top end of the high street clothes, footwear and accessories on behalf of their customers, runs a free personal styling service. The service is offered at Norwich’s intu Chapelfield-based store and gives the college’s fashion and retail students the opportunity to put the skills that they have learned during the styling units of their courses to the test.
ego’s operational supervisor, Rosie Peacock, has worked in a variety of retail customer service and management roles for companies such as Warehouse and John Lewis. Rosie talks to us about the benefits of investing in good quality fashion and explains the importance of the college’s specialist retail and fashion training facilities: “Investment dressing has become increasingly popular over the past 10 years and is something that we really promote in our store. Having a few key, good quality fashion items that flatter your body shape and highlight your most attractive features is the best way to ensure that you look and feel good every day. Investing in carefully selected clothing is also guaranteed to ensure that you always have something to wear for more special occasions and will save a huge amount of space in your wardrobe!
“Being able to pull together the perfect outfit comes with experience, but it also requires having good basic knowledge of what suits each body shape, colouring and skin tone. To ensure that our students are able to offer expert styling advice, we provide them with a range practical experiences, such as creating seasonal outfits for our shop windows, as well as giving them comprehensive lessons that teaches them the essential basics.
“Retail is a huge industry with a wide range of fantastic career opportunities at all levels to suit those with creative and business mindsets that are not just limited to fashion retail. ego is a vital learning facility that allows our students to gain invaluable buying, customer service, selling and visual merchandising skills that are essential to progress to within any area of the retail sector.”
