Skills audit

Personal Development Plan

KELVINAS LITVINAS

London, E3

  +447786981312 ● kelvinaslit@gmail.com ● 10-10-2000

Personal statement

First year undergraduate Fashion Marketing and Promotion student from Lithuania is looking for a position within a retail environment. 1 year sales assistant experience selling phones and accessories. A job in the field of fashion would provide me with necessary skills and valuable experience for my studies.

Education

Coventry university London Fashion marketing and promotion (2019 – expected 2022) Secondary school (Maturity Certificate)

Work Experience

Sales assistant and cashier at mobile phone shop (2018 – 2019)

Languages

Lithuanian (native)

English (B2 level)

Skills

• Proficiency in all areas of Microsoft Office, including Excel, Word and PowerPoint
• Social media skills
• Photoshop basics
• Video editing skills

Hobbies & Interests

Currently, one of my biggest hobbies is skateboarding. Also, contributing in skater-style brand building and reselling vintage second-hand clothes online.

Four SMART targets

To find a part-time job in retail environment by the summer. I would achieve this goal by sending my CV to at least one workplace each week. Job within retail environment would provide me with necessary experience for my studies.

Listen to a podcast or watch a video about fashion or marketing in my spare time each week until the summer.  I would gain additional knowledge for my course.

Improve productivity and time management skills by not using a mobile phone early in the morning when I wake up until the summer. Reduce the time spent on social media. In this way I could stay more concentrated in university and in general.

Read the book called “Marketing Fashion” by the end of second term. Read 10-15 minutes daily before sleep. I would gain a lot of theoretical knowledge which I could adapt to my course.

Reflective Trend Blog

Definition of trend

Trend is a general direction, movement or flow. Trends always change, old ones replace new ones and the circle never stops. Trends sometimes can stay for years or even decades. Also, it is difficult to track a trend and tell whether it is just a short-term fad or a strong long-term trend. People add modern aspects to an old trend and make it contemporary. Trends are influenced by different factors such as political, social, cultural or economical changes. Without a doubt, there are trends that can leave a huge impact on our lives.

Talking about fashion term, trend is a general tendency of the next fashion. Fashion trends can start and evolve through five key ways: catwalk shows, celebrities, street style, fashion bloggers, fashion Capitals of the World. Fashion trends can have a huge impact on the fashion industry worldwide. Trends become popular quite fast and  disappear over time, and then gains the ability to inspire upcoming trends in the future. ‘For example, if you read in fashion magazines that “there is a trend toward shorter skirts,” it means that several designers, including some leading ones, are showing shorter skirts, leading retailers are buying them, and fashion-forward customers are wearing them.’(2018, The Dynamics Of Fashion). However, trends are not always by industry but are often set by consumers.

I conducted my research from dictionaries, databases, books and websites. All four sources had slightly different information with different examples which helped me to gain a general understanding of a word trend.

Reflective report on store observation

I went to a womenswear store called & Other Stories. The brand is owned by H&M and it was launched in 2013 spring. It offers a wide range of clothes, bags, shoes, accessories and beauty products for women. The brand is present with 70 stores in 20 different countries around the World. & Other Stories designs their collections in three different ateliers: Stockholm, Paris and Los Angeles.

The store was original, modern, minimalistic and had a clean design. However, the store did not catch my eye from the outside because it did have any impressive window displays or eye-catching signs. Fitting rooms caught my attention as they were very spacious and impressive but were only available on a second floor. Most of the clothes were priced above average. There were also some clothes on sale. Most likely the clothes were from the old collection and discounts were up to 50%. Moreover, prices of the products were written in different currencies, thus, it allows the foreign customer to navigate easier. The store did not have enough guideliness, therefore, it was hard to navigate and find certain pieces. Customers varied from teenagers to middle-aged people. Their style matched with & Other Stories clothes as it was simple and a bit elegant.

The biggest downside of the store was that the window displays were very simple and boring. I feel that window displays are very important because it gives the customer a first impression of the store. However, the inside of the store was very modern and had a lot of trendy clothes which attracts people. Moreover, & Other Stories designs their collections in three different ateliers and that allows the customer to vary styles.

Reflective report on street style photography

My task was to analyse the trends and to do a street style photography in a specific area. I visited an area called Dalston which is the London Borough of Hackney. Dalston is an area for young people mostly because it is close to the city centre and has a variety of venues. Dalston is known for an active nightlife and good music venues. Also, it is a multi-cultural district because of the immigrants from Turkey, Poland and other countries.

However, it was a challenge for me to find young and fashionable people in Dalston. I went to the main street in the morning at around 11 AM and there were mostly old people. After a while, I found some interesting looking people who helped me to finish a survey. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people who rejected taking place in the survey and the main reason was that they were in a rush. The people that took place in the survey had a vintage and unique style. Most of them said that they shop in vintage, second-hand stores. Trends and styles people had were very different. Vintage look was definitely at the top, also, participants stated that they like to wear comfortable, loose and colourful clothes. Participants described their styles as elegant, oversized, sustainable and artistic.

This task gave me an opportunity to get to know more about people‘s trends and styles who live in Dalston. Also, I have improved my confidence skills by coming up to random people and talking.

Reflective report on viscual theming workshop

I chose the word “opulent” because in front of me there was a mannequin with a painted neck in golden colour. The first word that came up to my mind looking at the mannequin was “opulent”. So I chose to keep this word and find more associations with it.

As the word stands for luxury, costly and wealthy I was looking for jewellery stores and luxury clothes that people were wearing. I found a lot of shiny bracelets and earrings at Spitalfields Market. Also, I went to the Chanel store and took a picture of a huge chandelier. Moreover, next to Coventry University there was a student with an expensive “Gucci” backpack which symbolised wealth. Shinny belt that my coursemate had was simple but aesthetically pleasant.

This task gave me more knowledge and experience on how to distinguish object matching to a certain word.

References

Cooper, A. (2019). How Do Fashion Trends Start?. Womens-fashion.lovetoknow.com. [online] Available at: https://womens-fashion.lovetoknow.com/womens-fashion-history/how-do-fashion-trends-start [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

http://www.dictionary.com. (2019). Definition of trend | Dictionary.com. [online] Available at: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/trend?s=t [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

Mark Schneider Designs. (n.d.). Fad, Trend or Classic: What’s the Difference? | Mark Schneider Design. [online] Available at: https://www.markschneiderdesign.com/jewelry-article/fad-trend-or-classic-what’s-difference [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

Lee, J. and Cho, H. (2005). Development of a macroscopic model on recent fashion trends on the basis of consumer emotion  | Wiley Online Library. [online]. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2005.00370.x?casa_token=A9J-7U5TAooAAAAA%3AsNFH-GQRkcgVmnsUrHuCPHc_RQtn_kf64iHgaAzdXEUrimj8xsLK3up4wJfiGFsorCvcDuGcF9Ls [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

Stone, E. and Farnan, S. (2018). The Dynamics Of Fashion. 5th ed. London, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc.

Linkedin. (n.d.). & Other Stories. [online] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/&-other-stories [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

Hmgroup.com. (n.d.). H&M group | & Other Stories. [online] Available at: https://hmgroup.com/brands/stories.html [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019]

En.m.wikipedia.org. (2019). Dalston. [online] Available at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalston [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

Best Move. (n.d.). Dalston, London Area Guide – Interesting Facts | Best Move. Available at: https://www.bestmove.co.uk/blog/dalston-london-area-guide-facts/ [Accessed 4 Dec. 2019].

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

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