Students called to dress to impress

Skillsmart Retail is calling on students to go head to head in a new national competition launched today to find the best window dressers in the country.

skillVM, a UK-wide visual merchandising competition, was launched last night (Thursday 27 November) with the premiere of a promotional film starring TVís Mary Portas at the Fashion Retail Academy in London.

The competition will see students compete alongside professionals in live heats in shopping centres with opportunities to go on to a grand finale at Olympia and compete at an international level.

Anne Seaman, CEO at Skillsmart Retail, said: ìVisual merchandising is at the core of what retail is all about, and developing the talents of aspiring window dressers and creative students is a key part of developing its future. skillVM is an ideal opportunity to show off the inspirational, creative talent that VM students have and urge them to apply.î

Entering skillVM
Anyone studying or working in visual mechanising can enter skillVM by downloading an application pack from the website, www.skillvm.com, which guides them through the application process.

Teams of up to two people can enter into one of three categories. These are:

Student - for those working towards a visual merchandising related qualification

Independent - for those employed by an independent retailer with ten or less stores

Multiple - for those employed by a retailer with 11 or more stores

The competition will run in three stages. The first stage will see teams designing their displays on paper for a panel of judges. In the second stage, teams selected for the national finals will build their sets in regional shopping centres in either England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The third stage is the live final where the top three winners will build their displays at the In-Store Show at Olympia in May 2009.

Top competitors could potentially go on to showcase their talents at EuroSkills 2010 and even WorldSkills 2011, the largest international skills competition where visual merchandising aims to have a category for visual mechandising.

The skillVM film
The skillVM film, which is presented by Mary Portas, star of BBC2's Mary Queen of Shops, sees an explanation of the importance of visual merchandising and encourages people to enter the competition. In it Mary talks to visual merchandising experts, shopkeepers and students about why visual merchandising is essential and investigates why skills competitions are important.

During the film Mary calls on all of those involved in visual merchandising: ìIím challenging you to demonstrate your skills in visual merchandising. Weíre looking for the young visual merchandisers of today who will shape the look of our high streets tomorrow. Join skillVM by entering yourself, your students or your employees to compete to become the champion visual merchandisers of the UK.î

Competition backing
The competition is backed by UK Skills and the In-Store Show and sponsored by awarding organisation City & Guilds.

Skillsmart Retail Patron and Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership Charlie Mayfield, said: Visual merchandisers play a vital role in retail as the first point of contact with the customer. Inspiring merchandising helps to entice customers into shops and can make a real difference to the bottom line by driving sales. Visual merchandising is a great example of just one of the exciting and diverse career paths on offer in the retail sector.

Tony Morgan, visual merchandising tutor at the Fashion Retail Academy and author of Visual Merchandising: Window and In-Store Displays for Retail, said: ìAt last there is a professional competition that recognises and rewards the often underestimated heroes of retail: visual merchandisers.

David Lammy MP, former Skills Minister and now Minister for Higher Education and Intellectual Property, said that he was excited about the prospect of skillVM helping British visual merchandising making it to a world stage at WorldSkills 2011. He said: ìLondon 2011 is going to be a huge platform for skills, industry and the various skills sectors to demonstrate their excellence. I hope that retail is there in the mix, that there are employers wanting to support visual merchandising and other areas of the retail sector demonstrating to young people and indeed to the world what we have on offer.î