Tell us about your company…
Retold is a preowned fashion boutique, so we have over 8000 pieces of perfect condition preowned fashion, everything from high street all the way through to designer brands. So, we are about sustainable fashion, the most sustainable type of fashion is one that’s hanging in your wardrobe. As we all know, Dubai is a very popular shopping destination so what we want to do is provide a more sustainable, more affordable option to shop and keep your wardrobe fresh.
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Did you always know this was what you wanted to do?
No, I actually studied interior architecture at university, and went on to work in my career for about 15 years. So, I went from designing bars and restaurants, and hotels and spas to selling other people’s second-hand clothes basically.
Did you do any internships?
I did 5 years, 5 summers, work experience over the course of my studies and I actually think I learnt more during those 3 months in the summer than I did at the 9 months during my university sort of study. And then funnily enough I actually joined the company that I was doing all that work experience for, you know I joined them as my first job.
One piece of advice you’d give a young person trying to go down the same career path as you?
I would say do lots of research. But I didn’t do a lot of research, I kind of jumped into the project and at first, I was running alongside my career, which would be a huge point of advice, make sure you’ve got money coming in from a job, from a career and you work on your passion project on the side.
@cosmopolitanme Cosmo Careers ft Sian Rowlands – founder of RETOLD ##SianRowlands ##RETOLD ##Careeradvice ##Bosslady ##Cosmocareers ##fyp
Top 3 skills you need to have in your career?
I’m gonna classify my job at the moment as an entrepreneur, so I would say perseverance, the ability to multitask lots of different things and juggle, and the ability to deal with stress as well.
Do you remember your first interview’s dress code?
So, I’d say the first interview I had was probably more once I already discovered my fashion interest, if you’d like, and I think I turned up in suit and tie.
What has been your biggest career milestone or achievement so far?
well this is my second career, but I’d say my first career milestone was probably opening the bar at the Burj Al Arab. In my current career as an entrepreneur, I mean honestly pretty much regularly we get pretty big milestones because it’s all still so new. I think my current milestone is making it through COVID, so there’s so many milestones it’s kind of hard to pinpoint one, and when you’re a business owner essentially doing it single-handedly you just have to take every single win that you get no matter how big and small, so all of those milestones you’ve got to cling onto because it makes the hard, dark days easier to bare.