The Invisible Partnerships Behind Every Great Retail Experience

What if I told you the success of your next visual merchandising project had very little to do with creativity?

Visual Merchandising: Where Creativity Meets Commercial Strategy

Let’s rewind to where it all began. I was 13, sketching endlessly while my favourite songs played on repeat. In my head, life was a musical, and every scene needed the perfect outfit. Growing up in a small country town of 10,000 people, fashion wasn’t exactly a hot topic. But I was determined to make it my world. "All the world's a stage..." - William Shakespeare Too young to be employable, I set my sights on volunteering at a clothing op shop. After a few rejections (and being told I needed to be at least 14), I waited. The first Saturday after my birthday, I marched back in, only to hear, “Actually, you need to be 15, we didn’t think you would actually come back.” But my persistence paid off. The team leader saw my determination, and, with my mum’s approval, I landed my first job in retail. And just like that, my journey began. High school was a whirlwind. I juggled two after-school hospitality jobs to fund my dream—a fashion design and styling course with AICD. My parents and I agreed that I would pay half the course fee to prove I was serious, and honestly, it was the best lesson in commitment. At 16, my family moved to Toowoomba for better opportunities. Saying goodbye to my op shop mentors was bittersweet—they had been my guiding lights during those turbulent teen years. In Toowoomba, I landed a Christmas casual job at Myer, which turned into a longer stint at one of their concessions. By 19, I had completed my course and was ready for the next step. I moved to a part-time role at another concession, thrilled to finally have a job with paid leave—a milestone that felt huge at the time. Then came the big break. In January 2019, I applied for a Visual Merchandising (VM) role at my previous company. Despite the job requiring three years of experience (which I didn’t have), my passion and completed studies in design and styling got me through. At 21, I became a State VM in Brisbane. It was a dream come true, but it wasn’t without challenges. My age often worked against me, and proving my worth to colleagues, some who saw me as “just a kid,” was tough. But with time, mentorship, and a lot of trial and error, I found my confidence and honed my skills. By July 2022, I decided to leave my role as Visual Merchandiser. I wanted to start something of my own—something meaningful. Enter Kriti Ink. Initially, I planned to launch a clothing line, but I hit a creative block. Sketching, once my escape, now felt daunting. So, I started small: trying to sell my illustrations as art prints and colouring pages. It was a way to rebuild my confidence and test the waters. But here’s the thing—I was avoiding my true passion out of fear. Fear of failing at the one thing I loved most. Over time, I realized that I’d never stop learning or making mistakes, and that’s okay. What mattered was starting. So, I decided to combine everything I know—retail, fashion design, styling, garment construction, and fabrication—to help both retailers and shoppers navigate the often-overwhelming world of fashion. "Happy girls are the prettiest girls." - Audrey Hepburn For me, fashion has always been about magic. Transporting yourself into the world you want to live in just by putting on an outfit, your stage is set. It’s not about fast trends or luxury labels; it’s about individuality—feeling like the best version of yourself every single day. I’m thrilled to see people embracing storytelling through their outfits, dressing for the occasion, and expressing their unique style. But how do you do that while staying true to your values, budget, and finding real quality? That’s the journey I’m embarking on with Kriti Ink. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I’m excited to find them. And I hope you’ll join me on this adventurous fashion story. Let’s bring the magic back to fashion—together.

Today the western Christian world celebrates Easter by showing gratitude to Jesus for his crucifixion (commemorated on Good Friday) and his resurrection or rebirth 3 days later (Easter Sunday). If Christian you may observe the 40-day lent leading up to Easter; opting to fasten and observe a meat abstinence, have a period of reflection, prayer and preparation. From my understanding the Jewish celebrate the Passover (8 days leading up to Easter) as a form of gratitude for the freeing of the slaves and in some countries, lamb is the festival meat of choice. Easter is also recognisably named after the Norse Pagan Goddesses Eostre and Ostara; while also being celebrated on the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the Pagen Sabbat Ostara (Spring Equinox (Northern Hemisphere)). A little confusing but that is how the Easter weekend is worked out and why she moves every year. Now I ask you to keep in mind as you read through the rest of this journal entry that there are some key themes, that are not only common around the world (and BC) but also not quite logical when modernly observed in certain areas of the world. What themes do we see? A cycle of death and rebirth (3 days), beginning on a Friday, ends on a Sunday, (Jewish) 8-day celebration ending on Sunday, specific food abstinences (40-days), strong presence of gratitude and preparation, also an Astrological presence of the movement of the sun and moon.   Now personally I am not religious, and Pagan Sabbat made more sense to me as it is just a celebration of personifications of nature and follows natures natural cycles of death and rebirth. This journal entry is highly summarised to get as much of a variety as possible; because (pun intended), the rabbit hole I fell down was indeed very expansive, and I couldn’t possible fit in every detail or Goddess I found, let alone the ones I probably haven’t found yet.   So, I’ll begin with the Norse Pagan Goddesses Easter and Ostara, who are personifications of the Spring Equinox and thus celebrated with symbols of Spring harvest, fertility, beauty and even love and marriage. The birth of decorating eggs colourfully and exchanging them began in Norse mythology and be followed back to the Norse Goddess Freyja and/or Frigg. Ostara is celebrated with symbols of eggs, rabbits/hares, flowers, birds, spring foods and colours; things we actively recognise in our shops in the lead up to Easter. What always gets me is here in Australia we are in Mid-Autumn at Easter time; heading for winter, which, in Pagen traditions would put us closer to the Sabbat Mabon. As for Australia also being highly influenced by Christianity; the death of Christ and then his resurrection, should have an immovable date like Christmas (his birth). However, the only somewhat explanation for this (I can find) is that Christians believe he died on a Friday; therefore, it moves like Jewish Passover because Passover is worked out based on the Hebrew lunisolar calendar, hence the correlation to Easter and a full moon. Now I may cause some confusion here, but this is where my rabbit warren had some seriously interesting coincidences (keeping in mind the above themes). Friday, derived from Norse mythology as Freyja’s and/or Frigg’s day; also becoming known as Venus day due to the correlation to Venus’s energy and the Goddess energy. Every 8 years Venus orbits the sun and from Earths perspective once completed makes a beautiful pattern, that came to be known as the Venus Rose because of it’s 5 petal shaped turns. This is known as the Venus Synodic Period; the cycle will take 8 years to complete and within this 8-year period there are 5 Morning & Evening star cycles, where Venus looks like a very bright star in the sky. Each of these 5 cycles will take 584 days to complete and then repeating at the same time (give or take a couple of days) every 8 years. Now in this 584-day cycle; 8 days before the start of the rise and fall of the Morning Star (263 days long), Venus goes through Inferior Conjunct (after being seen as the Evening Star for 263 days), which is when the Venus orbit is between Earth and the Sun and becomes invisible to us for those 8 days. (The missing 50 days to this calculation are known as the superior conjunction; when Venus is traveling behind the Sun, which will sit in-between the Earth and Venus for those days.) The other intriguing numerical coincidence comes from Venus going retrograde (an apparent reversal of travel for Venus due to our different orbits and orbital speeds). Venus goes retrograde roughly every 18 months for 40 days (give or take); in the Venus synodic period, retrograde begins roughly 2 weeks after we see the Evening Star at it’s brightest, and then finishes about 2 weeks before the Morning Star will be seen at it’s brightest. This year in Australia the Morning star will be at its brightest, before dawn, while it is still dark on the morning of April 27th (one week to the day after Easter this year). Keeping in mind that the Morning Star can be seen around the same time of year, once in every 8 years; makes the myths, legends and folklore around the world very interesting, when they have Goddesses symbolised with a Morning Star or a Goddess of Love.   There are really so many fascinating cultural deities I could talk about; however, for now I will just mainly focus on those already mentioned, The Great Mother’s – Kunapipi (Aboriginal – Australia) and Ix Chel (Mayan – Central America). Many a more popular Goddesses have been mentioned in relation to Easter; and looking through as many cultures as possible, I found that they were all personifications and teachers of natural lore, that humanity needed for survival (that I believe we take a little for granted now).   Here in Australia, we seem to somewhat piggyback of other cultures that do not make sense according to this land. This got me thinking that if cultures around the world have deities that correlate to themes of creation, fertility, harvest and lunisolar movements; surely so must Aboriginal Australian culture. A book I used to as reference for many of the ancient deities around the world (Encyclopedia of World Mythology published by Book Club Associates) gave me Kunapipi/Gunabibi and the Djanggawul. According to what I could find out; Kunapipi is an Australian creator Goddess who birthed humanity, animals and plants. She features greatly as a Goddess but also the name of a ritual in Arnhem Land (Northern Territory, AUS); which interestingly enough features a metaphorical death, rebirth and renewal cycle. Some stories of Kunapipi mention a male companion; that of a python – the rainbow or lightning snake (the rainbow serpent dreamtime stories vary by country and can be male or female), who brings the wet season (Nov-Apr) and the promise of new life and food supplies for mankind. Local myth also tells a varied story about The Great Mother’s role being taken over by the Djanggawul sisters, who along with their brother, came from the Island of the dead (Beralgu) to the Gulf of Carpentaria. These sisters are also sometime referred to as the daughters of the sun & daughters of the Morning Star (Venus). It is at this point that I cannot help but feel that all cultures were teaching the importance of the stars and our solar system, directing us to learn about the natural order of fertility, harvesting and spiritual growth of humanity (as above, so below). Another cultural Goddess that bears resemblance to Easter and her relative Goddesses including the Australian Kunapipi and gives us our final piece of Easter (chocolate) is the Mayan Goddess Ix Chel.   Chocolate has played a major role in western Easter traditions and even though Eostre and Ostara mention chocolate as an offering in some sources, this cannot be so. The Norse culture is BC and can be seen hitting (modern) United Kingdom shores almost 900 years before Europeans ever knew about Mesoamerica, let alone it’s delicious cocoa. So where did chocolate get borrowed from? Enter the beautiful, wise, creator Goddess Ix Chel of Central America (Myan). Like Kunapipi, there is not a great deal known about her, but just like many others the Myan Calendar follows a lunisolar theme, particularly the movements of the Sun, Moon, Venus and Pleiades (constellation). Ix Chel takes three forms; that of the maiden, the mother and the crone, and why not, she is not just a creator but a symbol of the life cycle (nature and humanity) – the Tripple Moon Goddess. As such Ix Chel is depicted in varying ages with varying symbols, including a water jug, consort rabbit, sky serpent (upon her head), crossed bones (skirt) and the marigold flower. Lady of the rainbow (Ix Chel) is also considered to be the one to have created the great flood, assisted by the sky serpent, who contains all the waters of Heaven in its belly (life giving water). Ix Chel is also the patron to women in childbirth, of the weavers, and also a jaguar and funerary Goddess and as such alters and offering to the Goddess include clean water, anything blue, flowers, chocolate, fresh herbs, crossed bones, moonstone and symbols of the moon, rabbits, jaguars, dragonflies, snakes and rainbows. I really fell in love with Ix Chel and Kunapipi, especially their similarities, that show we can be born in different places around the world and have different beliefs, but we all still have to learn how to physically, mentally and spiritually survive and thrive in this world.   Wherever you are and however you celebrate this year, I hope you are surrounded by those you love, having a magical time together, eating delicious foods and grateful for everyone and everything.   If you know of any resources or other deities I should check out, please let me know, I love learning more about anything really. Here is a list of other deities I looked into and found similarities to the Easter themes; in case you wanted to check out some other amazing Goddesses; Ishtar, Inanna, Cybele, Anat, Astarte, Anahita, Mary, Barbelo, Sophia, Gaia, Venus, Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena, Tanit, Neith, Isis, Maat, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Parvati, Kali, Ganga, Jacheongbi, Jiutian Xuannu, Xiwangmu, Chang’e, Kichijoten and Amaterasu.   Resources – Books (Encyclopedia of World Mythology published by Book Club Associates), (The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Myths & Legends_ Arthur Cotterell), (A guide to the night sky_ Robert Burnham – Alan Dyer – Robert A. Garfinkle – Martin George – Jeff Kanipe – David H. Levy), (Goddess Magic_ Aurora Kane), (Tales of Norse Mythology_ Helen A. Guerber), (Signs & Symbols, An illustrated guide to their origins and meanings_ DK publishing), (the night sky, a guide to observing the Sun, Moon and planets_ Steve Massey) Websites ( https://www.proquest.com/openview/1d9a419b1886eb445e56007328dd2296/1?cbl=1819511&pq-origsite=gscholar ), ( https://dahenneman.com/2021/01/18/mythicalcreaturemonday-origins-of-witchcraft-ix-chel-ixchel-moon-goddess-mayan/ ), ( https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/venus-brightest-greatest-brilliancy-greatest-illuminated-extent-2/ ), ( https://www.astrologyzone.com/retrograde-dates-for-mars-venus-2020-2050/?srsltid=AfmBOoqi6BaK9qVEDrfuwdy1b6Sfysm2i0O9rb6Z7lUIPIFC8dj5X1Xb )