Deciding on a career path: Fashion, the perfect combination of business and art

Fashion, writing, violin and business; I'm a young man of many ambitions. Hi there, I'm Lucas, one of the new members of the Mine & Yours family. Working here has been an amazing experience thus far, but let's back track a little so I can tell you how I got here. Because of the many passions I have, it was a nervous time for me in my senior year of high school as I didn't know what I wanted as a career path. In the end I landed with English Literature at UBC. I figured being a good writer would open many doors for me. Very soon after University began, I decided that I wanted something a little more exciting and creative. I know I wanted to go into marketing, but that didn't quite light the fire under my belly all the way. So I thought, why not add fashion into the mix and make a career that's the perfect combination of business and art?

Fashion Merchandising at Blanche Macdonald

So after that breakthrough, I decided that I wanted to get started right away. I took a year off from UBC and enrolled into Blanche Macdonald for Fashion Merchandising. Nowadays, that's where I spend most of my time when I'm not over here at the store.

A Marketing / PR Fashion Internship at Mine & Yours

After I started my program, I immediately started looking for a job related to my field so that I could practice and apply what I learn at school. After picking through many internships and job offerings, I finally found a Marketing/PR Internship posted on Style Nine to Five. I ended up landing an interview and that's when I first met Jigme. We clicked right away, as she was also an English Major turned business woman. Right away, she struck me as a very motivated leader who spent as much time handling the business end as she did conversing with customers at the front. After hearing about more about the company, I knew this was the place I wanted to work. Annnnnnd, the rest is history.

If I had to describe the company in one sentence, it would be this: Mine & Yours has the professionalism of a high-end boutique, but the vibe of a neighborhood garage sale. We really try to create a sense of community and establish relationships with our customers. And it works in perfect synergy with our buy and trade business model. As a result, the customers that come in are just as warm and friendly as the people I work with, and that honestly puts me in an enjoyable environment as an employee.

My job main focus here at the company is marketing and PR. So that means, managing social media, blogging, E-commerce - anything that I can do to push the brand out into the public. Fashion school has taught me a lot and given a direction to my creativity, and I'm excited to see what I can do for the company in this new year. What I love about this job is the many hats I get to wear. I never know exactly what I'm doing coming in to work and that feeling is always refreshing. One second I'm in the back doing E-commerce and diving into the next blog post, the next day I'm managing front of house doing merchandising . My familiarity with luxury brands and merchandise have also gone up drastically. Not everyone gets the opportunity to handle Hermes bags and Chanel heels every time they walk into work. The people here are also extremely down to earth yet excel at what they do. Although I've only been here for around four months, it feels like home already. But what I value the most is that I have a lot of creative control and a voice within the company. I owe my incredibly fast growth as a rookie in the fashion industry to the opportunities and space that the company has provided me. In the future, I will continue to push my career in fashion marketing as I work alongside this company.

Thank you for taking the time to learn a little bit about me. I hope to meet each and every one of you very soon!

Best,
Lucas