Graduate Fashion Week: Finding new talent for retail.

Graduate Fashion Week has always provided fresh talent for retail businesses. Anna Richardson Taylor explores how retailers can benefit from meeting the graduates.
The impending graduation season should be a busy time for the retail industry. As one of the largest employers of young people in the UK, retail plays a key role in providing career opportunities for graduates. That role could not be more important in the current economic climate. The rate of youth unemployment in the UK is 22.2%.
But the graduate shows and fairs popping up around the country this summer aren’t just about graduates touting their creative talent. Savvy retailers realise they can be the ideal environments for attracting the most innovative students for all areas of the business, and highlighting retail as a career path.
Graduate Fashion Week (GFW), which runs from June 10 to 13 in London, is one event that is ramping up its efforts to attract more retailers. Showing work from more than 1,000 students from 40 universities, alongside workshops, talks and recruitment initiatives, as well as high-profile awards, it boasts illustrious alumni. Those don’t just include celebrated designers, such as Stella McCartney and Julien Macdonald, but some of the top brass in fashion retail, including Selfridges buying director David Walker-Smith.