UK wins Visual Merchandising Gold Medal



Image Copyright Adam Holt / http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Earlier this week the UK won the Gold Medal in Visual Merchandising.  How incredibly exciting is this?  The rigorously selected best of under 25 year olds from around the world competed at Excel last week during a 4 day grueling competition with competitors from all corners of the globe. 

During the past 10 months we've been working with the wonderfully bubbly Kirsty Hoadley on a weekly basis to build up her skills for the competition.  Together we visited all kinds of events (including the Truvia experience on the roof of Selfridges) and worked through a rigorous training/educational and selection programme in order to get to this stage.  Kirsty worked extremely hard, putting in the long hours of work that this industry demands, taking the media circus surrounding her completely in her stride, included radio and newspaper interviews and various film crews capturing the journey.  It has been a wonderful privilege to work with someone who shares our passion for the Visual Merchandising industry and a particular thanks to www.dzd.co.uk and www.millingtonassociates.com who helped and supported us in achieving the  Gold medal.  Kirsty now joins the Fashion Retail Branding and Visual Merchandising course at the London College of Fashion.  In the meantime, watch this space - Kirsty Hoadley is a star in the making and you heard it here first. 

More information about the event can be found on the link below.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldskills/team-uk-wins-five-golds-at-worldskills-london-2011?newsfeed=true

Image Copyright Gemma Emslie

Visual Merchandising Awards, 2011, London

Images Copyright Melvyn Vincent

Were you at the Visual Merchandising Awards 2011 last Friday?  If not then you really did miss an incredible evening.  In the company of film and televisions giggly Christopher Biggins  who hosted the evening, it really was a corker.  Out with the Drag Queens and crappy entertainment and in with a very sophisticated and very well planned night guided through what seemed like a fast paced night of awards - simply because it was such fun but so dignified.  And didn't it fly by, hey?  OK, well we picked up one of these lil' pups ourselves which made our evening rather more euphoric than usual, although what was particularly interesting was how some of the usually unsung hero's of the UK's Visual Merchandising industry were rewarded for their hard work over the the big-boys-with-big-budgets-and-big-egos-to-match who always seemed to flood the awards with their albeit, often well deserved schemes,  but give some else the opportunity too, right?  Anyway, the spread of awards was absolutely right and to see some of the smaller budgeted groups pick up an award was absolutely brilliant and encouraging - afterall, we dont want to kill our industry, do we?  The Visual Merchandising schemes entered for the 2011 Awards were viewed and judged by some of the industries finest and impartial.  The ante has been upped enormously this year and looking forward we can only wonder how things will develop from these robust foundations?  Better and better, we feel.
All images were kindly supplied by Melvyn Vincent at http://web.me.com/melvincent/VMAwards11/Photos.html