Shahd Alhamdan
DUBAI — New Look and Koton brands, which are part of Landmark International, are opening several branches in the Kingdom during 2016, creating job opportunities for the local workforce, especially for the Saudi females.
Several trainings are provided for Saudis and more managerial positions are available now for females because of the opening of new stores.
According to the Business Head of New Look in the MENA region, Paul Dale, the brand has good presence in Jeddah, Riyadh, and in Dammam, but New Look is about going into more remote locations. More new stores will be opened in Taif and Al-Qassim.
Dale explained that a new store will be opened this week in Unaizah and another store will be launched soon in Jouri Mall in Al-Qassim. He added that six stores will be opened in the next six coming months. Because of this massive expansion, new jobs are available for youth.
“We are focusing on Saudization and feminization. We also working incredibly hard in the past three years to increase Saudization in stores. We are actually – myself and my colloquies – have spent a lot of time in Saudi Arabia training and developing a lot of Saudi females before we got them working,” he said.
Dale said that currently Saudi females are working in several positions including cashiers and developing some of them to become store managers. Koton, one of Landmark International brands, is also expanding in Saudi Arabia. On Sunday, the launching of one of Koton new stores took place in Unaizah.
“We are going to open in Buraydah this month,” Senior Brand Manager for Koton in the MENA region Sophia Bakkal said.
She added that Koton is planning to open 9 branches between 2015 to 2016. “We are employing a lot of Saudis and ladies. We are training ladies to become managers and area managers. The responses of three or four stores about females show that they are doing very well. We are trying to push more of women and men, but ladies are more keen on details and they are more fashionable,” Bakkal said.
Landmark International brands, including New Look and Koton, have officially launched there Spring/ Summer 2016 collection on Media One Hotel, Dubai on Tuesday. Some of the clothes of the new collection are already in the Gulf region stores.
