Sainsbury’s Jen An

Last week I met John Carolan, the Rachel Green of Sainsbury’s kidswear. That’s right, head buyer of all the children’s clothes in all the Sainsbury’s across the land. This is not a job you get from shaking your choppy bob and leaning over the cappuccino machine you understand.

Chatting to John, I realised that my dreams of being a fashion buyer hadn’t factored in the stringent fabric testing, trend analysis, constant quality control and strong grasp of maths required. John proudly showed me water repellent Teflon coated school trousers with re-enforced ironed creases and extra robust hems, fantastic Halloween costumes and winter coats all put through their paces by a specially recruited testing panel of actual kids.

According to John the strongest trend for A/W 2013 is going to be the heritage look, featuring tweeds, animal motifs and equestrian detailing and look out for sixties style silhouettes with daisy motifs as inspired by Prada. Worryingly (mainly for him) my chat with John did at one point segue into a strange Benny Hill sketch when I told him I would really like to see his pants. Sorry about that <SAD MUM JOKE ALERT> ‘brief’ misunderstanding John. 

Close-up: I am always looking out for a great denim pinafore dress. Love the simple apron shape of this one  – very Stella.