Manchester Trafford Centre- Zara Home Store Opening

Last Sunday I began my 5 day trip to Manchester with a group of other trained Visual Merchandisers and amazing support team to open the new Zara Home store in the Manchester Trafford Centre. What a week!! It was so fantastic to see the store slowly come together and meet my fellow VM’s in the company and be so inspired by them and getting to know them.

Honestly, it was a really hard week… with only 5/6 hours sleep each evening, 14 hour long days and VERY achey muscles. But at the same time it was an extremely fun experience seeing the store bloom and we all supported each other because we were all in the same boat – Dragging ourselves out of bed at 6am to gulp down three coffees ready for the day ahead!

If I could use one word to sum the whole week up… Hmmm… BOXES.

Boxes and boxes…

…and boxes and boxes…

oh hey, more boxes…

…even more sodding boxes…

…Did I mention boxes?

Big square, little square, cardboard….

BOX!

Seriously if I never see a cardboard box again it would still be too soon. The boxes did eventually dwindle down though SHOCKINGLY. It seemed like a never ending battle at times, human VS box, battle commence.

But we won. Yes, we won! And boy doesn’t the store look dandy and fantastic now!

During our lunch breaks we explored the Trafford Centre which I must say is HUGE! Even bigger than some shopping mall’s I have visited in America, and I thought they were big! Obviously we didn’t really get the chance to venture out of the centre and see a bit more of Manchester but honestly the centre was big enough, and beautiful!

Overall, despite the fact that I’ve pulled three muscles, can’t move my back properly and crashed at 8pm to sleep 16 hours straight when I returned, I genuinely really enjoyed this amazing experience! It is so rewarding to see the final outcome and know that I contributed to it!

And what an amazing team we were!

Over and Out! (and back to bed!)