Fashion buyer careers: Long climb to the Paris catwalk

There's nothing like retail therapy, as the nights draw in and the joy of putting together a winter wardrobe comes to the fore. If the very idea gives you a trill of excitement, the thought of being in charge of sourcing a selection of clothes for a shop, keeping alert to trends and buying up styles may well be too much joy to handle. Alas, becoming a professional fashion buyer is not quite as easy as kitting yourself out in the latest styles. But if you're really dedicated to making a career of it, there are routes to becoming a buyer - although all come with hard work as standard.

"The market is very tight at the moment," says Susannah Tomlinson, director of Talisman Retail, a specialist recruitment company for buying and retail worldwide. Keep reading - this doesn't mean give up: it just necessitates extra creativity and some hard graft even before you get a job. "The normal pattern is to do a fashion-related degree," Tomlinson says. "Ideally it will be a sandwich course so that you have a year out in order to get business experience." This, she says, is vital in such a competitive industry. "Even if it's making tea and coffee in a buyer's office, it can be really important because if you make a good impression, it could give you your first job after graduating." Forward thinking is therefore essential. Work on the shop floor in a clothes shop shows that you have hands-on experience; work experience in a buyer's office shows you've learnt about the business; and a degree proves aptitude for learning and discipline.

It doesn't sound like there's much time to shop for yourself, never mind anyone else. Maybe not, but if you put the work in, the first taste of success will be becoming a buyer's clerk. As the first rung on the ladder, it involves the requisite tea making and administration (dealing with invoices and returns), with the average salary £16,000 to £18,000. After around a year, promotion to an assistant buyer (AB) means increased pay (£17,000-£19,000) and responsibility, dealing with contracts now and helping the buyer more. There are three levels as an assistant buyer (AB1, AB2, AB3), each taking around a year, before you become a buyer's assistant or junior buyer, essentially a trainee buyer role. Depending on who your employer is, the salary can be from around £27,000, and up to £45,000 at larger fashion houses. Next, you can set your sights on becoming a senior buyer (salary around £55,000) and then head of buying (up to £90,000). Throw travelling to exotic locations into the mix, and the hard slog of the early years are a distant dream.

Or not. The role seems glamorous, but a great deal goes on behind the scenes. "Expect to work all hours," laughs Tomlinson. "It's not always Paris catwalks."

No matter what else, it's an adventure. And for Christina Piggott, 22, associate buyer (equivalent to junior buyer) at TK Maxx, the fun is just beginning. Competing against hundreds of entrants in intensive assessments, she won their six-month fashion buyer internship programme. She began work in July this year, the same month she graduated from the Kent Institute of Art and Design. Piggott is already enjoying the cut and thrust of the profession. While most buyers make key decisions about four times a year, the nature of TK Maxx - selling brand names up to 60 per cent cheaper than normal - means their buyers buy all year round. "As associate buyer I support buyers," she explains. "I look at trends - information can come from anywhere, so I have to keep my eyes open. Nothing is ever the same."

She has already had a taste of travel: "I've been to a meeting at the New York office," she says. "The whole experience was really useful. I had jet lag but had to go straight to work after we landed." Piggott agrees that training comes through work experience.Before winning the competition, she'd done her fair share. "I had a placement at Tammy Girl head office for six months: three months unpaid and three months paid. I learnt so much about buying." It seems that the hard work in the initial stages is well worth it. Once you've packed in the experience to need to show potential employers that you're serious, you've paved the way to a lifetime of shopping. Now that can't be bad.