Sarah Hansford has worked in fashion retail for over 25 years, starting as a graduate trainee with Marks and Spencer where she launched the fashion jewellery department and pioneered new packaging concepts and product innovation.

Over the years, she worked for a supplier for leading high fashion retailers, as well as prestigious brands like DKNY, The White Company, and the Arcadia Group, where she was Senior Buyer for accessories, hosiery, and lingerie.

Her most recent role was with QVC, where she gained a wider knowledge of multi-channel retail and an interest in brand management and strategy. She then launched her own fashion consulting agency for sustainable brands, re-Create to share her experience and knowledge of retail. 

In this interview, Sarah Hansford and I talked about the transition from a 9-5 job to running her own business, the limiting beliefs she had to overcome to achieve success, sustainability in fashion, and so much more. Let’s dive in!

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In This Episode

• Welcome Sarah! Her story and how she started her own fashion consulting business, Re-Create Consulting. [02:03]
• What was it like for Sarah to transition from a stable job to running her own business? [04:19]
• How Sarah made her own luck and achieved success in her business from very early on. [08:18]
• How did Sarah get comfortable with self-promotion and putting herself out there? [10:08]
• How getting support from a business coach helped Sarah get comfortable charging her worth. [12:14]
• How Sarah seeks out ideal clients – and the temptation of working with just about anyone when you’re worried about putting food on the table. [15:11]
• How do you know as a consumer when a fashion brand is really sustainable? [17:46]
• Fashion alterations you can do at home to give new life to old clothes. [22:47]
• The real environmental cost of returning clothes and why you should try to minimise that as much as possible. [23:22]
• What changes has Sarah seen in sustainable fashion over the years? [26:07]
• What are the main challenges sustainable fashion brands face right now? [28:11]
• How did Sarah know that working in fashion was her calling? [29:39]
• Sarah worked in so many different roles in the fashion industry. Did she struggle to find the right fit or did she love all her roles? [31:26]
• How does Sarah decide which projects to focus on at any given time? [34:27]
• What’s one habit or belief that has improved Sarah’s life the most in the past 3 years? [37:04]
• Sarah’s advice on how multi-passionates can create a business and life around all their passions. [40:42]
• What did Sarah think she would be doing and how is what she’s doing now better than that? [43:21]
• Parting words and how to connect with Sarah. [44:40]

Resources

Find out more about Sarah and her work at: https://re-createconsulting.com/

Follow Sarah on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-hansford-85857011b/

Follow Sarah on Instagram: www.instagram.com/recreateconsulting

Download the Success Accelerator System: https://thetreasureswithin.net/success-accelerator

Connect with Giorgia on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTreasuresWithin/streams

Quotes

“One thing you have to be comfortable with is putting yourself out there and promoting yourself because if you don’t, nobody else is going to. People aren’t just going to come to you. You have to go to them.”

“If I don’t value me, then why would, why should anybody else?”

“It’s a concept of, if you have to eat a frog, that’s not very nice, but whether you eat it now or whether you eat it tomorrow or in a week’s time, it’s still going to be resolved. So you may as well just eat it now and have it done. Then spend a week worrying about eating it. Then it’s still going to be horrible. If there’s something I don’t want to do, I think just eat the frog, do it. You’ll feel so much better when it’s done.”

“If you are doing multiple things, how do they all feed into each other?”

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