 For many men, the idea of traipsing round the shops advising their other half on clothes shopping comes top of the list of painful chores they'd rather avoid. For Baber Ahktar it's his job. The 26-year-old is the new Personal Shopping Manager at Harvey Nichols in The Mailbox; his job, to suggest, select and serve customers who need a little help on their visit to the decadent department store. Contrary to popular belief, however, it's not all about the hard sell. It is, however, he admits, an unusual job for a guy... "For a straight guy, yes it is unusual," he laughs."You don't get very many - if any to be honest; I might be an enigma... "We don't pressurise people into buying anything," he insists."There's a big perception about personal shopping that you're in there to coax and coerce people to buy - it's not like that at all, it's very, very far from the truth; we had a lady in here earlier on today, she was in here for the best part of two and a half hours and she only bought a bag in the end, but it's not an issue to us what they buy - the standard of service is the important thing. "You're not obliged to buy anything, the service is complimentary; you can come in, spend your time, we'll give you fashion advice and you can walk out without buying anything and that's not going to make any difference to us... to us we've gained a customer regardless." Baber, who studied politics and economics at Wolverhampton University, spent a brief spell working at a law firm after graduating ("mainly to appease my parents...to them the retail thing wasn't exactly something I should be doing"), but soon realised that he wanted to return to his first love of retail - and Harvey Nichols: "I've always had the ambition that I would come back and do something like this and I'm really happy that they would accept me back and give me this role," he says. "It is a strange role because you need to accommodate people; just because you've got a booking between 1pm and 2pm doesn't mean that person's going to take an hour - you might spend a good three, four hours with that person and have to put all your other bookings back. "They might not buy anything, but that's the nature of the business, not really a problem; personal shopping is more about developing that personal relationship." So what qualities make a good personal shopper? "Above all you need to be honest to your customers," says Baber."Personal shopping is not necessarily the environment where you can get away with trying to actively oversell things; if a customer comes in and they've got a certain idea of what they want, you have to get into those ideas and use those ideas - it's no point going over to the shop floor and picking them the ten most expensive pieces just because they can afford it, it has to be the right thing for the right person." As well as speaking with Harvey Nichols' buyers, Baber keeps an eye on trends through the glossies, TV and internet: "A lot of it is staying on top of the magazines and the looks that celebrities are wearing," says Baber. "Fashion seems to dictate what people in celebrity are wearing and vice versa." While much of the personal shopping experience involves physically trying on clothes, Harvey Nichols also offers a unique service where customers can view items not on sale in Birmingham but available at the Leeds or Knightsbridge stores via a satellite link system. "I can't remember one instance where we've had someone come back and say 'you said this looks good on me and it doesn't'" says Baber proudly. "[Going shopping with friends] is a double-edged sword," he smiles. "You go out with your friends and they want an outfit for the evening or a wedding, and because they're your friends you don't have those restrictions of what you can say to them:'what do you think?' 'dreadful - take it off!' - you have to be like that. "I still love shopping, it's something that I've been into since I was 15, 16," Baber admits."I still like my classic labels, my Prada, my Miu Miu stuff... but I find that now buying a house and everything, when I should be pulling back on spending I'm spending more because of the atmosphere that I work in; you see all the stock come in, it's terrible!" * To book an appointment with Baber call 0121 616 6008. Baber's dos and don'ts DO "My main thing would be if people are comfortable in something and they feel that it's not too restricting to what they'd normally wear they should go for it. "You see a lot of Trinny and Susannah and so on, they put that thing on people 'you shouldn't wear that, you should be doing that' - I'm not too keen on all that. I just think at the end of the day if someone's comfortable in what they're wearing why isn't that enough?" DON'T "Black and navy's a thing that's always driven me mad; a dark navy and a dark black outfit, I don't see the combination working." "Denim and denim - recently I've seen a lot of outfits that I thought that would work, but personally I would say a big no to that one."
| 
