Meet Darcey – our first-ever retail apprentice!
Having gained a first class honours degree in Fashion Design at the University of Plymouth last year, Darcey Morgan joined Rowcroft as a retail apprentice to channel her love for sustainable clothing and to gain important skills and experience for her future career in the clothing industry. In this wonderful blog, Darcy explains how she’s made great strides in her new role, how she’s enjoying the freedom of putting her creative and artistic flair to great effect in Rowcroft’s shops, and how she’s proud to be supporting the hospice through her work.
Fashion with meaning
“I have always been passionate about fashion, in particular second-hand fashion and sustainable clothing. This interest grew considerably during my time at Plymouth University, and I based my final major project on second-hand fashion retail. Rowcroft is a charity which is close to my heart and when I was given the opportunity to work with the Retail Team I used this to turn my passion and creativity into something meaningful and worthwhile.”
Darcey’s role
“As a retail apprentice I work alongside experienced retail managers and I have the opportunity to develop and demonstrate my customer service skills, for example working alongside volunteers on the shop floor, serving customers or processing and managing stock. I help to create a visually exciting environment, through having the opportunity to create vibrant visual merchandising within the store, such as themed window displays and store layout. I have also been given the opportunity to be part of the social media team.”
Darcey’s instore experience
“At Rowcroft, I have learnt many transferable skills, gained valuable experiences and made new friends. Rowcroft encourages creativity within stores and as an artistic individual this has allowed me to demonstrate my creativity – my favourite being the process of putting together window displays. Working alongside the managers to create these displays has allowed me to express my creative ideas, and to get hands on with constructing props and designs for different themes and events. I believe this challenges the overall stigma of how a charity shop could look by modernising the overall concept.”
Driving positive change
“Personally, I believe that sustainable fashion is the future of fashion retail. At university, I explored in-depth the resale market and I discovered the issues the fashion industry faces, such as textile waste and the exploitation of workers. This drives me to create positive change. To me, buying second-hand fashion is not only fun and cost-effective, it helps towards reducing the amount of textile waste our planet creates by re-wearing and sharing the clothing we have already created. With all the troubles going on in the world, communities need to come together and support each other. What better way of doing this than supporting local charities while saving the environment!”