Brief Encounters: Natalie Kingham

"I grew up in South London and for as long as I can remember loved clothes and dressing up - I was always interested in what people wore and loved looking at the way the women in my extended family dressed.

As a pre-teen I was taken to Portobello Market and was instantly drawn to the way people expressed themselves through their clothes - it was the early '80s and Notting Hill was a very different place to what it is today.

As a teenager I started going to clubs - in those days the club scene was underground and the way you dressed determined your entry or refusal, especially if you were underage. So my week was spent creating and styling my friends and my attire. It was such fun and from that instant I knew that I wanted to end up in fashion and set about trying to make that happen.

I applied for a place at fashion college, but you needed to have an art background and I was hopeless at drawing. Instead I tried my hand at photography and got a job assisting a photographer. I was also working in the Joseph shop at Brompton Cross, a major fashion hub at that time, and an incredible opportunity came up when (label founder) Joseph Ettedgui asked me to find interesting British labels for the store, which was so exciting. Patrick Cox was a favourite of mine, as was Alexander McQueen - I attended some of his first shows and bought the collection promising Joseph it would be a success.

I have also been a stylist, had my own line of clothes and wholesale collections. So I have had a diverse range of jobs within the fashion industry.

In my opinion, the most important thing for a buyer is to have a strong point of view and to keep things fresh and exciting. Retail has changed a lot and the customer lifestyle has also changed - women are on the move a lot more, multitasking all day between work, motherhood, travel and everything in between. Fashion has also become so viral that yesterday's secret is today's trend almost overnight, so being fully aware of all this is very important. Social media has transformed the way women dress and what they want to buy - a buyer needs to be very trend driven and always ahead of the curve.