Professional Beauty meets workwear supplier Alexandra
Professional Beauty speaks to Sara Catanzaro, Category Executive - Design at Alexandra, about the plans for Professional Beauty London, where they will be exhibiting for the first time.
Sara has worked for Alexandra for 8 years, developing both bespoke customer uniforms and catalogue garments. Interacting daily with their customers she has gained a wealth of knowledge on how to create fashionable and functional garments for the beauty and spa industry.
PB: What is the background of the company and what type of products do you offer?
SC: Alexandra is one of the UK’s leading workwear and uniform suppliers providing a catalogue of over 20,000 stock backed products across a number of sectors. With over 150 years of industry experience Alexandra designs and manufactures high quality fashionable beautywear to ensure our customers look smart, professional and on trend with the latest fashions, colours and fabrics.
PB: What is your most popular product and what do you think makes it popular?
SC: Our most important products is our extensive range of male and female tunics. This is a core item in the uniform industry and provides our customers with a strong and smart brand identity. This seasons hot product is our NF33 beauty dress, a slim fitting short sleeve dress with stunning tunic details. Available in black or our elegant amethyst soft touch, polyester stretch fabric, this is the dress to be seen at work this year.
PB: What makes your products special over the competition?
SC: Our products are designed with the customer in mind, incorporating customer feedback, years of experience in the industry, current fashion trends and colours and durable yet comfortable fabrics. We also have a wide range of salon and spa supplies such as disposables, towels and slippers to ensure Alexandra is your one stop shop for all your salon needs.
PB: How cost effective are your products when introducing them into a salon?
SC: Our products range from as little as £3.99 offering a wide range of options for all budgets to introduce a uniform to their salon. If you are on a tight budget why not add one of our vibrant coloured obi belts to your existing tunics to add a flash of brand colour or a modern style bow. We also offer multi-buy pricing across our catalogue ranges so the more you buy the more you save, an ideal solution when you want to kit out an entire salon.
PB: Do you provide any extra services, advice or training programmes for professionals who use your products in their salons?
SC: Our website, Alexandra.co.uk is regularly updated with tips and advice on the latest popular styles, this season hot colours and special offers on our ranges.
PB: Why should salon owners visit your stand at the show?
SC: This is Alexandra’s first visit to Professional Beauty 2014 and to mark the occasion we will be offering our customers the fantastic opportunity to purchase our products at special show discounted prices. We will have a full selection of styles, colours and sizes available for you to try on as well as a competition to win £75 of Alexandra vouchers exclusively at the show.
PB: Are you having anything new on your stand at the show?
SC: At this years show we will introduce our fun and funky metallic clogs, an ideal fashionable and comfortable footwear solution for anyone who is on their feet day after day. These metallic finish clogs are available in 3 vibrant colours, green, purple and pink, and perfect to add a sparkle to a plain black uniform.
PB: What tips would you give salon owners looking to introduce a new line into their salon?
SC: A large proportion of our weekly time is spent wearing uniforms, so it is important to pick a uniform that is not only comfortable but also promotes the employee and brand as a professional business. A uniform creates a unity among employees leading to a self-motivating tight knit environment. The use of key brand colours as an accent of the uniform will help solidify the customer perception that you work for that brand as well as the use of your logo on the garments. It is also key to ensure that you pick the right fabric, style or sizes to complement your team; the use of colour is an ideal way to co-ordinate your team while giving them the choice of different styles, which they feel comfortable in.
Click here to watch Alexandra’s fashion show presenting their latest collection.
Alexandra will be exhibiting on stand H20 at Professional Beauty London, on 23-24 February 2014 at London ExCeL. Register here for your FREE ticket.
