RETAIL PROFILE Barkers Home
Building a
Barkers’ Christmas Barkers Department Store’s Christmas Buyer, Cara Allinson, turned her hand to running festive retail for the historic store for the first time in 2021, and loved the challenge – as she tells Sarah Welsh…
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arkers Department Store has been a North Yorkshire institution for well over a century, with customers travelling from miles around to shop there. The Barker’s brand dates back to 1882. It was founded by William Barker, who was one of 14 children and grew up on a farm. He became an apprentice in a drapery shop that would eventually become Barkers and then bought out the business in 1918. But this is a retail brand that has also successfully blended a proud history and heritage with innovation in recent years. Barkers Home – one of the largest home stores in the North of England – which now houses the brand’s famed Christmas shop, was originally built in 1994 and then then underwent a 20,000 square foot extension in 2016 as part of a wider £3.5m refurbishment programme. Barkers Home is now pivotal to the success of the Barkers brand, alongside the beautiful town-centre store. Barkers’ Christmas Buyer, Cara Allinson, has worked for the company for 20 years and also
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“I work closely with the visual merchandising team here, and we create festive feeling throughout the store as well as in the Christmas shop.” buys for lighting and seasonal and home accessories. Based at Barkers Home, Cara is married with a 15-year-old daughter and was herself born and raised in Northallerton. In your job it’s literally Christmas all year round! How did you come to work within festive retail? I was very artistic from a young age and had a Saturday job working on a fruit and veg stall as a teenager. I studied textiles at university and went to work in visual merchandising for fabric brands in London. I’ve now worked for Barkers for two decades, starting off in lighting, but one of my favourite things is still helping people on the shop floor. Our seasonal department used to be at our high street store, but following the extension of the home store, it moved here. I
took over buying for Christmas in 2021 from our previous seasonal buyer, Julie Poynton, but I’ve long managed the Christmas department. How did you combine your expertise in home accessories with festive planning? Last year we dressed the downstairs of Barkers Home looking at Christmas through a home wares lens. I work closely with the visual merchandising team here, and we create festive feeling throughout the store as well as in the Christmas shop which is in the centre of the first floor. From our Tree View Café to the lighting department to cookshop to soft furnishings, Christmas flows through everything here and that’s key. In recent years we’ve seen as a trend people dressing their whole homes for Christmas, and that’s reflected in the team input that
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