In order to get clothes for the show, we needed to convince designers, boutiques and even high street stores to lend us their pieces for the runway. After making a personal connection to the John Lewis Personal Styling department through Instagram, I made contact and asked for a meeting.
In preparation for pitching to big brands such as John Lewis, I made a presentation and practiced with one of the directors Jonathon so we knew exactly what we were saying in there. Working in sales has also helped me as it is just selling yourself (or LRFS) to the client - in all the meeting went extremely well with them posting about us on their Instagram.
Everything was going so smoothly - we picked out the clothes I wanted for the show (aprox 50 pieces!) and Jess and Victoria were really keen to get involved, until one very unpleasant phonemail from the head of PR for John Lewis Leeds. She said that she had not been informed about their participation with LRFS and that they had to withdraw as they did not see how LRFS aligned with the John Lewis brand. I, not taking no for an answer, requested a meeting with them as it was extremely unprofessional to pull out of a show ONE WEEK BEFORE, after it had been in discussions for over 2 months, and even ruder to do that over the phone. In the time between the phone call and my meeting with John Lewis 'pr & higher management', I knocked up another, sleeker, presentation, focusing on the scenes concept but without the 'arty' 'abstract' references, as I felt that this is what would be offputting to them after researching the company. John Lewis is very traditional, classic and elegant, therefore those aspects of each scene needed to be brought to the front to position LRFS/Time.less with their brand image. This was successful in part, as was discussing the other brands such as M&S who were getting involved, however the final clincher to make sure they were still on board was implying that their withdrawal now would be taken as a sign that they do not support mental health charities. They quickly changed their mind and lent us more than we needed for the show :)
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Harvey Nichols
In order to get bigger brands and actual fashion featured in the show, I contacted an old employee of Azendi who roumer-had-it was the new assistant manager of a concession within Harveys - Louise then managed to point me in the direction of Clare Johns who is the store manager for H.N Leeds. After a few no replies from Clare, I took to LinkedIn and messaged the Leeds PR Manager with my proposal for their brands within the show, as well as asking for a meeting. This was successful! The next day I had a long phone call with Carlson discussing the show, its current contributors and how they could get involved.
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