Career Advice - How to Become an Art Buyer by Dawn Neale

>> DAWN NEALE: My name is Dawn Neale, my job title is Art Buyer, and I work for Boden. This is the catalogue I was involved in producing. I source photographers. stylists, hair and makeup artist and I'm also responsible for model castings. When I was younger I had no idea this job existed. I wanted to do something quite glamorous I think, and I think that’s why in the end I decided to become a hairdresser. It was back in the day when it was still quite a glamorous thing to do being a hairdresser. I did an apprenticeship at Vidal Sassoon in Toronto in Canada. I really enjoyed it, it was great, really great. It was great socially for an 18 year old hanging out with all these really cool people. And then when the reality bit and I was having to go to work every day you’re not sort of learning all the time. You’re always trying to make yourself better but I was getting quite bored. When I became a freelancer, it was because I had met a guy who used to work in the hair salon that I was working at the time, being very bored in. He came to visit us, and told us about his glamorous freelance career working in studios with great photographers, and I thought, "Well if he can I can". So I found that quite inspiring. It's kinda took off from there, I built a portfolio up together, presented it and got an agent to represent me. And that was my introduction into the photographic fashion industry. What I've learned about a career is that, have an idea of what you wanna do and if it changes because you made the wrong decision, it doesn't mean packing it all in, it just means taking a slightly different path.