VIEWPOINT

Sharon McPherson and her husband Stewart own the award-winning highlysuccessful Opus Couture and Opus Atelier bridal salons in West Kilbride

Ihave been in the bridal industry since 1985, that’s 35 years, and I have never experienced anything like this before. We are all in unchartered water.

Life has become strange. Life without our businesses open, even stranger.

We miss our work colleagues, our teams, our suppliers, our industry, but we miss our customers even more.

This unusual time has made me look at just how much we actually put into our work. Every waking moment is overtaken with problem solving, new ideas, financial analysis, staff management and stock control… and that’s not even half of it. We balance everything on a very fine line and it’s not easy. I’m quite sure I’m not alone in realising that bridal has taken over my whole life.

It is true that I am passionate about all things fashion, it actually is my whole family’s business. But there is more to life, and this unusual time has proved it.

The present situation has made think long and hard about how I would now like to operate within this industry. How do we recover? And I don’t just mean our businesses, but we ourselves.

Our world is changing. So perhaps this is a time for our industry to change in line with it.

This may be just me but, I feel bridal has always been placed just outside the main fashion industry, not far away but not quite fully embraced. However, the whole fashion industry is now

reviewing its established practices.

How will all of this effect our future customer, will it even make a difference? And do we want it to, or are we happy with things as they stand?

What would you like to change now we are returning to work? What do we need from this industry to sustain our future and our personal wellbeing, and how does that actually look?

The rules of how we operate have been dictated to us by the customer, the industry, the supply chain. Almost everything and everyone other than us, the bridal boutique owners.

I personally feel this may be a time that we can use to recover, reinvent and improve our industry as well as our own practices.

Could this be a time when we initiate change? I know I have more questions than answers, but is that not how change begins?

What resonates with you? For me, right now this is a time to finish what I’ve started, be thankful for what I have, acknowledge what I have achieved, and work out how to move forward.

So I’m not going to moan, complain, or just take what’s given to me from customers, staff or suppliers.

I’m setting my own plan, and I’m sticking to it, for the protection and preservation of my business, my own sanity and personal wellbeing.

Of course I will adhere to the current guidelines that control our lives right now, and I will live and work safely.

Nothing is certain, apart from the fact that this too, will end, but in the meantime we must find our new normal.

My hope is that the new normal will be a happier, less stressful, and more profitable place than that we have know in the past.