Jane Shepherdson

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Jane Shepherdson (born Bristol in 1963) is the outgoing Brand Director of trendy UK high-street women's wear store TopShop.

Born in Bristol to a Professor of Mathematics and a Biochemist, Shepherdson's sister is a writer and brother an animal behaviourist. Shepherdson was educated at Clifton High School, where she began customising her clothes. She studied Business Studies at the University of North London, joining the Burton Group (now the Arcadia Group), after being inspired by her mother's story of a fashion buyer friend ^[1].

Shepherdson started as a warehouse picker sending stock to stores, and was then promoted to become a buyer in the jersey department. She ordered an un-trendy at the time job lot of tank tops, and sold 500,000 in a week. She repeated her instincts to establish her reputation at Arcadia. Her initiatives at TopShop have included:

TopShop Freshers' Week party - with annual discount evenings and free alcohol to tempt teenagers to spend their student loans
TopShop To Go - 100 select items are delivered by Mercedes to home
TopShop Express - a fleet of Vespas deliver up to five items within three hours of the online order

She is credited with being the leading British proponent of "fast fashion" in the mid noughties, a trend demonstrated by TopShop's reaction to demand for "boho chic" in 2004-5 ^[2] ^[3].

A week after TopShop owner Philip Green announced that supermodel Kate Moss had signed a deal to design clothes to be launched in 2007, Shepherdson resigned from Topshop ^[4].

Shepherdson is married to a criminal defence lawyer, and cycles from their flat in South London to work. She lists her hobbies as running, horse riding, skiing and shopping.