Our Fashion Journalism and Fashion Design and Promotion students paid a visit to Smart Works Newcastle earlier this week to meet stylists, take part in styling challenges, have some career coaching and much more.
Smart Works Newcastle is a charity that helps women who are unemployed with clothing and coaching ahead of job interviews. Smart Works operates throughout the UK and have opened 11 centres across the country over the past decade, with their Newcastle centre opening in 2018. The charity has helped over 30,000 women across the UK with their Interview Dressing and Preparation Service and one-to-one interview coaching sessions.
credit: Lucy Baker
On their arrival to Smart Works Newcastle, students were greeted by Laura Sharman, who is the Outreach Lead for the charity. Students were given a tour of the area and were introduced to their team of staff and volunteers, including stylists that help their clients create their perfect interview outfits.
Students were then given a number of styling challenges to complete by their team of stylists. They worked in small groups and each group was given a description of a hypothetical client, including their name, age, height, clothing preferences and the job they were interviewing for, to name a few. Students were given full access to the wide range of clothing they have available, including jackets, shoes and accessories like bags, jewellery, scarves etc. Once they had created the perfect ensemble for their fictional client, each group presented their interview outfits to the Smart Works team and other students. They explained their choices and why they were relevant to the brief they were given, earning nods of approval from the team.
credit: Lucy Baker
After completing their styling challenges, students were then moved to the stock room where they began sorting through all the new clothing that Smart Works had received through donations etc. They deemed which pieces were appropriate to be added to their wardrobe of clothing available to clients and anything that needed to be given to charity shops. Any articles of clothing that are a bit too worn or deemed to be too fast fashion are donated to St Oswald’s Hospice charity shops. Any high end and designer pieces were added to their £5 rail, which is taken to the events they host that are open to the public to shop great clothing at a great price. Some items were put to be sold through their Vinted account, where they list many hidden gems at a fraction of their price. They currently have a pair of Dolce & Gabbana heels and items from brands like Ganni, Acne Studios, Skims and many more listed for sale on their Vinted.
For their final activity of the day, the students sat down with Laura for some career coaching and help with their CV’s where she gave the students some invaluable advice for their futures in the world of work. Students were then joined by a few members of the team so that they could introduce themselves and give an overview of their work at Smart Works as well as their careers before they got there. The Smart Works Newcastle Centre Manager, Helen Boyd told students everything from her time studying at University of the Arts London to working in Dubai and how she went from a minor role in Smart Works to the Centre Manager.
Students also got the chance to hear from the Head of Communications, Samara Laboriel, who has been newly promoted to the role from Communications Assistant. Samara also studied at the University of Sunderland on none other than the Fashion Design and Promotion course, graduating back in 2019. She told the students all about her time studying on the course and how she managed to end up working for Smart Works Newcastle, as well as her decision to study a Masters Degree in Cross-Cultural Communication and International Marketing during the Covid pandemic.
If you want to see more from the Fashion Students’ visit to Smart Works, take a look at the TikTok we made taking you along with us below!
@fashion_north Come with us to @smartworksncl! #fashion #fashionstudent #smartworks ♬ positive vibes – nanaacom
69% of Smart Works UK clients get the job within a month of their initial appointment. When clients are successful in receiving a job offer, they can then return to Smart Works, where they are once again able to browse through their vast selection of clothing offerings and select 5 more additional items. They can take these pieces of clothing and use them to help build a capsule wardrobe of outfits they can wear to work.
We spoke to Laura Sharman, Outreach Lead at Smart Works Newcastle about the day and she said: “It’s been brilliant. It was really good for the students to show interest in coming to visit Smart Works so yeah, I think today went really well.”
We asked Laura about the possibility of any future collaborations between the University and Smart Works Newcastle and she said: “Yeah, there’s absolutely a future, we’ll get involved as much as they want us to, it’s great to get more young people involved and let them know about what support that can access, even maybe not for now, but for in the future.”
Laura also told us that Smart Works will be hosting a pop up shopping event in Sunderland that will be open to the public. The event will be taking place at Sunderland City Hall on Thursday 26th June, be sure to keep an eye out on their socials for any updates and further information on the event so you can go along and grab yourself a steal.
Smart Works are also collaborating with John Lewis for their ‘Summer Styling Event’, set to take place on Thursday 22nd May 2025 between 5:30pm – 7:30pm. The event will be hosted at John Lewis Newcastle and include expert advice from a John Lewis’ personal stylist, and top summer beauty tips and secrets from Bobbi Brown. Guests will even receive a complimentary glass of fizz on arrival and a goody bag. Tickets are priced at £12, with all ticket sales in support of Smart Works Newcastle, you can purchase tickets at the link here.
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