What it's like to be a Visual Associate - Behind the Scenes at GAP Outlet

During my year on placement which I undertook as part of my degree, once I’d been to America and done a stint in a design studio in London (Lowie – go and follow them on Instagram @ilovelowie), I returned home back to the east midlands and all though I’d successfully completed the number of weeks I needed to in order to pass the year out, I had no income and my creativity was being wasted and this is when I started working for GAP Outlet as a Visual Associate. I’ve been at GAP now on and off for nearly a year and a half and have currently been given a 20 hour contract as a Visual Associate whilst I continue you my studies, becoming a MA student later this month in Fashion Textile Practices.

Being a Visual Associate for any brand, not just GAP/GAP Outlet, isn’t always as glamourous as it sounds! I’m up and down ladders on a daily basis, lifting either mannequins/overheads double the size of me and more often than not cursing under my breath because the forms arm won’t click back into its socket after you’ve redressed it, it’s kind of like trying to find a needle in a haystack especially when you’ve got more than one layer of clothing to deal with. But above anything, being a visual associate is always fun and creative and ultimately has its benefits. These include, visiting other stores such as London to help/ gain experience with their visual department and even traveling overseas for new shop openings, Italy and Paris have been the most recent, just so you get a feel of where as visual associate for GAP you potentially get to travel.

Obviously I don’t know how other brands go about visualising their stores/ their opportunities, but at GAP every store should mimic the same look and aesthetic so as its consumers feel a sense of familiarity when they walk into any store, whether this be in New York, Hong Kong, or South Normanton, this ultimately making it easier to lend a hand in visualising in GAP stores across the globe. In order to achieve the uncanny similarity between stores when visually marketing them, we use a document called a VPG, enabling us to dress the mannequins the same, give or take items that we have less/more stock of, create the same visual effect with our overheads and shelf fillers and finally engage our consumers to come into the store in same way with our window displays.

There are mainly 3 areas that you have to concentrate on when being a visual associate Overheads, Forms and Windows. These are generally the areas you can be expected to be dealing with on a day to day basis, amongst other general sales assistant tasks, these areas are explained in further detail below.

1.       Overheads/Filler Shelves

Every shop has overheads and they’re basically posters placed upon the highest shelf of selected store areas such as Men’s, Women’s, Kid’s etc. and more often than not promote either new seasonal product with a model wearing the garments or the product themselves and generally brand messages e.g. Gap have posters of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco as that’s where the brand originates from. Filler shelves are the shelf below the poster where excess product is placed in a visual e.g. we often butterfly fold our denim in the men’s/women’s section.

Product Overhead Example

Filler Shelf Example with Butterfly folded Denim

2.       Mannequins/Forms

Mannequins or Forms as we call them at GAP, are used once again to promote the brand and its products, to entice you in to buy the product even more. Because if the garment isn’t shouting out to you from its nicely neat pile (this may not apply at weekends or at Christmas!) or from its hanger then it may well do if you can see it physically on a “person” stood in front of you, you can see how it hangs, how it fits and above all how you could style it.

Forms/Mannequins in store/on the shop floor

3.       Windows

As a visual, a lot of work goes into the windows of the store, obviously this is because it’s the first thing people see that represents the brand and ultimately entices them in to the store to shop the product. Like the overheads and the mannequins in the store, GAP’s windows follow a VPG in which usually changes every 3-4 weeks depending on promos in store etc. GAP Outlet’s windows are currently promoting the recent autumn stock we’ve had in via both male and female forms and a 30-50% promotion across the store via the use of a large poster.

Window Mannequins/Forms

Overall Window Display/Visual

All Mannequins/Forms that we dress at GAP have the staple black and white converse as footwear to reflect the brands all American ethos, apart from Summer when the odd flip-flop sneaks in!

So I hope that gives you an insight into what it’s like to be a Visual Associate/what I get up to on a daily basis, if I’m not studying/making/designing things and what would be expected of you if you ever did go down the career path of being a Visual Associate for GA/GAP Outlet!

Jess xo