The 2000 Mile Journey: How Kevin Wall became successful in what he loves.
Kevin Wall is a fashion instructor at The Art Institute of Vancouver in Canada. He has had a stellar career in the merchandising aspect of fashion for over 25 years now, and it all began with a sales associate position. He has worked for Harrods in London, Tommy Hilfiger in Canada and currently represents the brands Nautica and Strellson for the whole Canadian West coast.
As a small town boy who now lives in one of the best cities in North America and who also managed to succeed in a career that was virtually non-existent in his home town, interviewing him was a chance I couldn’t pass up. Read on to see how this Mount St. Vincent university grad (he holds a degree in Business Administration with a major in Marketing and a minor in Management) became what he is today.
What made you decide to go into fashion? Was it a person, a moment?
To be completely honest ever since I was a child I’ve always had a vested interest in fashion and I think it stems back to literally when I was a child. I can remember my oldest sister telling me that I was always so particular about what outfit I was wearing for the day. And I remember even in church, this sounds awful I should have been concentrating on the sermon, but I can recall the people in front of me and looking at them from behind and thinking ‘oh, that jacket is too big on you and it needs to be cinched in at the waist’ or you know, the shoulder pads are too big it needs to be cut down a bit. So I was even much more consciously aware of fits, silhouettes, all those things even back then.
You were born with it...
Yeah, I guess so
How do you think your first boss would describe you? What do you think sets you apart from the rest?
Devoted, definitely reliable, very much engaged in the business, and showing a real true vested interest.
What would you say was the biggest achievement of your career so far? Have you ever had an “I made it” moment?
My biggest achievement would have to be going to NYC and meeting Tommy Hilfiger. I was Regional Merchandising Manager for Western Canada at Tommy for 12 years so meeting the man himself was pretty big.
I remember it was in Manhattan and we had booked a restaurant in Central Park called Tavern on the Green and it’s seeped in history, they’ve done a lot of filming there, Audrey Hepburn filmed there too. So we booked the entire restaurant for our annual conference and when Tommy himself came in we had a chance to do a little meet and greet and it was definitely very exciting.
It was also a bit of a blur, it went by very fast and I sort of felt like in awe in a way...to be able to meet the big
guy himself.
Is there anything you would change about your career so far?
Not so much change but I sometimes wonder about the time that I spend it London, England in the late 80s and early 90s as a sales at Harrods Department Store. I was in line to be fast tracked through the system into a management position. But I was very young, I think I was 19 at the time, and my parents wanted me to return home to basically finish what I had started because the Harrods thing was something I would do in the summers between my University classes to earn my Business Degree. But I sometimes wonder had I stayed in London and had I stayed with Harrods and grown with them what would have happened, it would have been interesting to see what my future would have been like then.
Would you go back now, with all the experience you currently have?
Well, once you have established yourself and you are a bit older you tend to be more calculating with your moves. When you’re younger you have much more freedom, you don’t have a home or a mortgage or a significant other to take into account. But would I go? It depends on many things the opportunity itself for one,
the position and the compensation, but then again the decision wouldn’t just involve me anymore.
So why is it that you never tried going to New York?
When I finished my degree in Halifax and in between my summers in London I decided to go to Montreal because I really wanted to dive into and understand more about the fashion industry.
So then I was in Montreal from September to December, which was one semester and after that I decided to make the leap to Vancouver because during my time in England I met so many Canadians that just happened to be from Vancouver, and they had told me how Vancouver was blooming at the time so I decided to just go there and try.
New York on the other hand was very expensive and I didn’t really know anybody, on top of that getting the work visa was extremely dificult as opposed to getting a visa for the UK as a commonwealth citizen which was much easier. Although, I did have FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) mail me an informational package, it was great but again, quite expensive for someone with five siblings.
How do you think coming from a small town and having lived in places cities London changed the way you work and feel about fashion?
You know, when you go from a small little city like Halifax with approximately 300 to 350 thousand people which is obviously not a fashion center or mecca to a place like London it’s like going into a whole new world.
There’s so much variety in not just clothing but everything, from culture to music, art, and theatre that it inspires you in ways that no other place can.
What do you think would have been diferent if you would have been brought up somewhere where fashion was more open and available?
That’s a good question; I would probably still be interested in the whole fashion process. In fact, when I was younger there were no real fashion schools in Canada and I’ve said this to students before that if I could turn
back time and was aware of schools like AI or Ryerson I would have definitely gone to a school like them to really dive into it. I was like a sponge at that time, I just wanted to learn and know everything.
Now that we have covered a bit of your background let’s dive right into your job. Looking back now, what moment of your career that you found hard when it happened was actually very beneficial?
I think the toughest part is when sales didn’t perform as expected, I think on a certain level I would take that personally and I had to learn not to. When a new collection arrives at the store you set it up and dress the mannequins and if it just doesn’t perform for a certain reason you do end up taking it somewhat personally. For me it was still a good learning opportunity in the sense that I learned to look at the business in a diferent way, you know looking at some external forces that might have actually afected the sales depending on what’s going on with the economy for example, something as simple as say a renovation in a mall or in the surrounding area can afect foot trafic so it made me understand a little bit better that it may have not been the clothing itself and it may had just been an external factor that contributed towards that.
What consequences did this have in your job in general; did the people above you understand the situation?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you have an off season it doesn’t mean that they’re going to come after you and fire you on the spot. What they usually do is try to understand why; does it have something to do with the collection itself or is it the fit or the style? Maybe the color was off or they want to know if the reason is external factors. Basically they need to know if it’s things that the company can control and then try to and the way to work to improve this.
Whose career would you like your own to reflect?
There were two people in Tommy that I used to look up to, they were very inspirational and almost like mentors to me. One of them was Wendy Peacock who was my boss at the time, very encouraging and gave you a lot of freedom and trust. I never had an immediate supervisor or boss when I worked in Vancouver because they were always in Toronto or Montreal.
Did that scare you?
Not really, in fact that’s how I work best give me a task or job to do and I will get it done.
Wendy would check in periodically but she wasn’t overpowering and I remember thinking this is how I want to be when I become a manager, democratic and fare. She would give deadlines for things to be done and they
would be realistic and fare, she was a very caring person. The other person was Michael Clop, he was in charge of retail development. He was a great guy but what I loved about him was that no matter how incredibly stressful life or the business was getting he always kept calm, you would never now if he was stressed out. He was always positive and happy, he just had a very calming effect when you were around him, and it was almost like taking a tranquilizer (laughs). And I mean that in good way, he kept you focused and grounded and it was
an attribute I’ve always tried to emulate.
Ok Kevin, last question. As a newcomer to the industry myself I always want to know what makes a potential employee stand out, so what I want to know is what did your best employee do to impress you? What made you hire them in the first place?
Whenever I hire a new employee I always look for the IT factor, I even notice it with some students and it’s great when you identify that because you can see such potential in them.
I hired this one person when I worked at Tommy and he used to manage the Tommy shop at The Bay Vancouver downtown store, long story short I saw so much potential in him that I groomed him to essentially become a higher level manager himself. He is now since moved on and is the regional merchandiser for the Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation and I like to sort of smile and say “yeah, I trained that young lad” and now he’s doing very well and has a very successful career of his own.
*All images courtesy of Kevin Wall, Facebook.