Careers For Older Women – In Fashion

June 8, 2010 · Posted in Advice · Comments Off 

Imagine utilising your skills while you surround yourself in fashion? I am going to suggest for you that a career in fashion is an excellent career for older women. I am passionate at focusing on skill set to get to where you want to get to in your career. Let’s look at fashion careers for older women.

Who said fashion is about youth? Certainly from reading glamour magazines and seeing how the general media portrays body image in fashion you would think so. But there are so many jobs that create a fashion business and I am going to let you know the one’s that are prefect careers for older women.

Presentation is everything and in fashion it’s the entire industries core value. There are a multitude of brands craving for the presentation and style of older women. In fashion retail and wholesale sales particularly I have had numerous requests for the presentation, reliability and commitment of an older woman. Successful Australian brands including Maggie T, Resort Report, Wombat, Dolina, Brown Sugar and many more rely on the presentation of older women to relate to their clients in the retail and wholesale environment. Better still some offer exceptional flexibility to attract older women to their careers including flexible hours and job share structure. Many of my clients have commented on the need to employ older women to relate to the brand and target customer and although it is not policy for them to discriminate should a younger person apply they have found huge success in attracting and employing older women to their brands especially in the retail environment.

Let’s investigate the behind the scenes careers for older women. Over the years and during my days in Fashion Recruitment I have placed many older women into permanent and job share roles in Customer Service, Accounts and as Administrators. The attraction of employing a skilled older woman who may be interested in permanent part time or job share is highly attractive within a fashion head office environment. One of the pluses that employers are constantly quoting to me is that older women are reliable and tend to stay in the role for a long period of time thus providing consistency and sound relationships with customers. By providing flexibility many employers have realised that the benefit to the business is immeasurable. Older women feel that they are being valued by the employer and with this the loyalty that they give has a direct impact on sales and service levels.

The question begs… Is there room for older women in design, product development and brand management roles within a fashion environment? In this instance an older women making a career change into fashion may find obstacles in securing a role in these categories. Experience counts and making a move into a career in fashion in these categories relies on experience. In this instance my suggestion to you is to focus on your foundation skill set and transfer these skills into fashion. For example if you have been an administrator within another industry you could simply make the transition into fashion and create your career within a new environment. Attempting to move from an unrelated skill set into design, product development or brand management as an older woman may result in a lack of opportunities, however, if you have been in a design, product development or brand role within a fashion environment you have a future.

Reposition yourself within a brand applicable to your age and fashion purchasing habits. In design, product development or brand management your success is reliant on your understanding of the target market and what better understanding will you have if you are the customer? That’s not to say that older women are not successfully designing youth brands, they are and always will. But in my opinion your understanding of the target market and adaptation to youth product as you get older can be challenging. If you strategically reposition yourself into a new target market and make use of your skill set you are guaranteed success.

In fashion careers for older women are also common within Senior Management and Operations. Youth is not a factor when it comes to leadership and strategic business management and experience counts. If you have created your career within a fashion environment in operations and management you need to move with the times and adapt to the behaviours, drivers and thinking of the youth you employ. If you can successfully do this which means not adopt stale ideals of how thing were you have a great future. Your career drivers as an older woman may be completely different but your success and especially within a fashion environment is your ability to wholeheartedly embrace change and the youth of today.

One more thing; successful careers for older women within the fashion industry are incalculably reliant on your ability to move with the times without trying to be what you are no longer; young at heart will do just fine.

Natasha Zurnamer is a co Director of Rat Race Recruitment Online, the global hub of fashion jobs featuring 150 fashion job categories and new fashion jobs listed daily. To search or advertise jobs in fashion visit www.ragtradejobs.com

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Ethical Fashion: What, Why and Why Now?

October 28, 2009 · Posted in Business Grants · Comments Off 

What is ethical fashion, why is it important, and why are we just hearing about it now?  Well, to answer these questions we start with what is wrong with clothing production today.  Most clothing available in stores today is produced in an unethical manner using sweatshop and/or child labour to ensure a larger profit margin.  Manufacturers use unsustainable fabrics like non-organic cotton (dubbed as natural, it accounts for almost 25% of all pesticide use) and polyester (which is a petroleum by-product).  They use conventional dying practices which release chlorine, chromium, and other pollutants into the environment  posing a health risk to the farmers, assemblers and wearers (7 of the top 15 pesticides used on conventional US cotton crops are “possible”  to “known” human carcinogens).  The shift to ethical production practices in the clothing industry has been undeniably important for a long time making the market ripe for a positive change.  Consumers are starting to demand better.

What is Ethical Fashion?

Ethical fashion is that which is produced using: fairly-paid and fairly-treated adult workers; sustainable fabrics and materials like organic cotton, hemp, bamboo, and reclaimed or recycled materials; low-impact fiber-reactive dyes or vegetable dyes; respect for a healthy environment and/or product for the farmer, the assembler, and the wearer of the clothing. 

Why Ethical Fashion?

We are all responsible for how our own lifestyles affect the environment.  Simple measures can be taken to achieve big changes by simply switching our buying patterns to include products made of low impact materials.  Positive pressure on businesses who have yet to volutarily clean up their acts is very easily applied by simply choosing not to spend money on their products, and helping – little by little – to grow the businesses who have made an explicit commitment to responsible business practice.

Why Now?

The wonderful thing about the booming ethical fashion industry is the huge variety of designs, colours, cuts, fabrics and sizes now available.  Long stigmatized as cousin to the  burlap sack, the ethical offerings today are design-oriented.  Designers with heart are creating beautiful, sexy, edgy, classic, current, imaginative, and, yes, flattering pieces – ethics will simply not be compromised and thankfully neither will the look and feel of their work.  Reducing our footprint can be done without making any sacrifices. 

One of the main driving forces of the ethical fashion boom is public awareness.  Thanks to exposés on large manufacturers, the fact that sweatshop labour is used for the overwhelming majority of production can no longer be ignored.  The power of boycotting has been demonstrated, as has the power of voting with our dollars to support good practice. Thanks to accessible work like  “An Inconvenient Truth”, the lay person is no longer free to assuage their environmental guilt with the denial of the existence of climate change. Thanks to alternative medical practitioners, who deal with cause instead of just symptom, we’re learning that we can build health by surrounding ourselves with and consuming healthy things. 

Consumers are growing weary of the quantity without quality mentality.  Most designers with an ethical bent to their art, work in small batches, producing high quality goods with exceptional fabrics. Consumers are, in growing numbers, appreciating the right to vote with their dollars; and are exercising it to support expansion of the sustainable textile industry, small farmers and farm co-operatives.  We’re all looking for ways to reduce our environmental impact, increase our social contribution, ease our consciences,  hold on to some creature comforts, and continue celebrating art in all its forms.

http://www.fashion.moneybizhome.com/ 

Oli works full time as a Market Analyst.He graduated in Management.He can help you to grow your computer consulting.
http://www.moneybizhome.com/computers

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/fashion-articles/ethical-fashion-what-why-and-why-now-1388056.html

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