Shopping is part of my job. Isn’t that GREAT! Well it is if you like shopping ;o)

When I used to work as a designer for various high street stores, I even got paid to go shopping! As a designer for a mainstream retailer you absolutely need to know what everyone else is doing and that means shopping.

While working as handbags & jewellery designer at Next in the late ’90s I even clocked up 47 flights in 1 year on all the shopping and factory trips I made with the buyers for those departments.

Our shopping trips took us to New York, Tokyo, Paris, Milan, it was fabulous.

I wonder if the current designers & buyers still travel so much – you can see so much more on the internet these days!

Now I tend to shop when I’m out and about and rarely take a special ‘just shopping’ trip anywhere. I find now that I prefer to get my inspiration from the holiday trips I take to more unsual destinations or from the fabrics and textiles I find on those trips.

If I was offered a 1st Class shopping trip somewhere right now though, I would choose New York. It’s about time I went back there for a bit of retail therapy!

Where do you get your retail therapy from?

Photo: Craig Easton