FASHION FORWARD
As the fashion industry adapts to a new way of providing style to customers, Janice Butler chats to Brown Thomas fashion buying director, Shelly Corkery, about the challenges and opportunities she has faced in the past year
I’ve seen Shelly Corkery at many Brown Thomas new season fashion shows. Always immaculately dressed in the clothes she so passionately speaks about, as the head buyer for the country’s most prestigious department store, she’s an ideal advertisement for the designer beauties she picks for BT’S luxurious rails. The past year, however, has been a very different scenario for Shelly, as the fashion industry was been turned on its head. Gone are the globetrotting days to see and touch samples, the runways of the biggest fashion houses went virtual for their typically spectacular shows and her customer wish-lists completely changed, opting for comfort rather than turning heads. Shelly, originally from Cork, knows the business inside out. She’s been in the fashion game for over 20 years, starting her career in the Design Centre before moving to Brown Thomas and working her way up the ranks. When we chat, she is, like the rest of us, working at home. Her daughter started college last September, so she’s grateful not to be home-schooling, but she feels for students like her daughter, missing out on a proper college experience. “She didn’t get a graduation, she didn’t get a freshers’ week, all the classes are online. I think it’s so tough on that age group.” When the pandemic hit last March and retail had to shut the doors, Shelly and her team went into damage control mode, having bought in a new season of designer stock, that they
“The one thing I found really hard was buying virtually; that’s not something we had ever done before”
were now going to have to sell online with new innovations and virtual personal shopping. “It’s been so difficult for retail, there’s no getting around that. We are a bricks and mortar store but we are very lucky to have an online business and that has been what’s got us through the year. So when this all happened, we were in one season, we’re buying for a season ahead and you’re exiting another season with your sale stuff,” she explains, adding; “The one thing I found really hard was buying virtually; that’s not something we had ever done before. I really miss the touch and feel of the clothes from the shows. I’m a fashion girl, I need to touch it, feel it, try it and I really miss that side of it. The only good thing is we know the brands so well and trust them and they know what we like and know our customers.”
There’s been a big change in what her customers want and what they’re choosing to buy online. So what is the Irish shopper looking for at the moment, considering we’re not really getting any opportunity to wear statement pieces?
“We’re all wearing our athleisure wear of course, so the likes of Lululemon and Sweaty Betty are doing great, but what else seems to be popular is a good pair of denims, a nice shirt for work Zooms. Our best categories, though, through these times, have been our outerwear and our knitwear, by far. We can’t keep them in stock. We’ve had to change our buying mind-frame and just buy to wear. We’re not buying many evening gowns or sequin dresses, as you can imagine.”
But as always, fashion is still looking forward and Shelly says they’re hoping to welcome people back through their doors later this year and are currently buying in some summer stock. Shelly and her team are predicting a Roaring 20s style evolution in trends to come. “Hopefully, this is the last lockdown with the vaccines being rolled out, so we are looking forward and buying summer dresses, teamed with runners, sneakers and of course shorts,” she says. “People have been held back so much for what will be over a year and we’ve minimalised our lives so I think there will be a huge elevation of fun in fashion when this is all over.”