In Your Shoes - Fiona Hain

Fiona Hain is Branch Manager of McCalls newest store in Whitehall Street Dundee.  Fiona previously worked in and managed the Broughty Ferry store before a few years with Malmaison.  She is very happy to be back to assisting customers with all of their Highlandwear needs and has a strong focus on providing excellent customer service.

Photo Shoot Fun

Today was a very exciting day helping Beth Farquhar from The Scottish Wedding Directory with a Groom’s photo shoot for the July magazine.  We, along with other menswear suppliers got to showcase some of our best Groom’s outfits including the newest tartan to McCalls exclusive Pride range, the Midnight Granite Pride.  The shoot took place in Guthrie Printworks which gave a great backdrop to show off all the beautiful outfits.  The models were great to work with and from the previews we got from Harrison the photographer the photos look amazing.  It was lovely to see the variety of choice that Grooms have now, from quite traditional to more modern with lots of grey tones.  I can’t wait to see all the finished pictures!

The Windows Are In!

Our workmen are doing a great job with all the final touches to the shop today and it is the first time we have the full McCalls of Dundee team together.  It is nice for everyone to have a chance to get to know each other a little before the shop opens on Monday.  The new window displays have been put in today and have a very summery theme; they even include tartan palm trees!  I think they look great and our window dresser Scott has done a great job.  We are all working hard getting everything cleaned and ready to display all of our new stock.  We are all tired and filthy at the end of the day but the shop is coming together now and we can’t wait to start creating beautiful displays tomorrow. 

Launch Party Prep

We have some helpers down from our Aberdeen store today to tackle the last of the cleaning and starting the great job of sorting all the new stock.  It is good to see everything that we have ordered and start placing everything around the store so that we have attractive displays to catch customer’s attention.  We are getting everything in just the right place and making sure that we have everything that we need ready for opening.  I had a meeting today with the singer who will be providing the entertainment at our launch night on 18^th May, Stephanie Mason from Stark Sound.  She will be singing a great range of songs and has an amazing voice.  I am looking forward to hearing her perform on the night. 

Getting the hires just right

The sales floor of the shop is now looking good and we are working hard on the hire floor; it is so nice to have so much space in the shop to play with.  We get the hire stock all ready and where it needs to be to make fittings as smooth as possible.  We also had a few customers pop in for a little peek while we are working so it was nice to chat to them and answer their queries.  Caught up with Elaine the Sales Manager from Malmaison about their kind donation of Champagne for our launch night and did some hire fitting training with the new staff.  There was even a little time to design some beautiful jackets and sporrans for our displays.  McCalls is a great company to work for as they encourage managers to tailor the individual shops to the area they are in and be creative with stock.  Only a few days now until we are open!

Team Dundee

Today is the first day where it is just the Dundee team together with nobody else so a great team bonding day as well as being productive.  We start the morning with some more cleaning; where is all this dust still coming from!  Then the Managing Director treats us to lunch for all our hard work so we take a break to enjoy a Dominoes delivery in the shop.  The afternoon is spent doing some more staff training in both departments and some practice hire fittings.  Everyone is working together so well, I am very impressed with them all.  Some have worked with kilts before and some haven’t but everyone is very keen and are picking things up really well.  I let everyone away a little early so I can catch up with some paperwork and they can all relax after a hectic week.

The Day Has Arrived!

It’s opening day!!  We open the shop at five to nine as we can’t wait for our first customers to come in.  We have been working towards this day for the last few months and are so glad it is finally here.  With it being the first day we didn’t expect to be very busy but we had lots of lovely people come in, some with enquiries about hire outfits, some who are looking to buy some particular items, and we even had some hire bookings.  Our first customer to book a hire was a lovely man called Trevor.  As a thank you for being our first hirer we gave him a Pride outfit hire for a discounted price, saving him around £40.00.  He was delighted with this and even let me take a picture to show you all.  We are so happy to now be part of Dundee City Centre; pop in for a visit and a look at the new store.