Strategically and commercially focused, as an experienced and results-driven Merchandising Director in luxury fashion, I acquired a proven track record of success in leading cross-functional teams and driving profitable growth through effective merchandising strategies. With two decades of experience, I have developed a deep understanding of the Luxury industry, including market trends, consumer behaviour, and competitive landscape. Throughout my career, I have developed and implemented global and regional strategic initiatives within performance analysis, product development, retail and wholesale upgrading and project management. During my academic and career foundation in economics and evolving in strategic management, I have been fortunate enough to be part of heritage businesses, covering an eclectic range of product demographics.
Responsibilities • Partnered closely with Nicholas Kirkwood and the design team on the product strategy as well as with the commercial team to identify market needs to define key volume product introductions and key image items to continue to build a strong brand recognition. • Collaborated with the development and production teams in Italy to better control the collection processes (critical path, prototypes, design to costs and industrialization phases). • Created selling reports, historical recaps to analyse and communicate business performance to CEO. • Effectively led the team through management change (new CEO). • Managed and improved all merchandising activities from collection brief, sampling, development budget, pricing, editing, omni buy, sell in/sell out analysis, collection presentation in market, VM and product training. • Created and implemented a critical path for each season’s collection to ensure proper time management for design, merchandising and production. Achievements: • Developed and executed a successful merchandising strategy, analyzing market trends, consumer behavior, and sales data to identify new product opportunities and streamline the product assortment. Introduced best-selling products within the first year of implementation, driving substantial revenue growth and establishing the company as an innovative, customer-focused brand. • Enhanced delivery performance by implementing key style industrialization, forecasting sales in advance of order confirmation, and introducing multiple drop deliveries. This led to the timely introduction of new products at the start of the season, improving overall customer satisfaction. • Collaborated closely with factories to implement a design-to-price strategy, achieving competitive pricing while maintaining a wholesale margin of 40-42%.
Responsibilities • Organised and sold the collection to wholesale clients during market and managed Paris sales campaign • Developed and managed new and existing accounts through prospection, regular meeting with existing clients, buying budget, deliveries tracking, sales analysis, training, store visits Achievements: • Drove double-digit growth in seasonal orders for Alberta Ferretti and Philosophy, and maintained flat results for Love Moschino in a challenging sales environment for middle-range fashion specialty stores. Accomplished this by introducing new clients and conducting a tailored sales analysis of each existing client • Increased sales and maintained brand consistency for Philosophy at Le Printemps and Le Bon Marche by conducting regular store visits, staff training, VM updates, stock swaps, and reorder management. These efforts resulted in consistent sell-through increases season after season, and helped establish strong client relationships.
Responsibilities • Managed all commercial and merchandising aspects for both retail and wholesale from open-to-buys and budgets through receipt tracking, markdown projections, sales forecasts, as well as assortment and orders according to geographic and consumer demand, trends, styles, and advertising campaign; and selling strategies including fill ins from warehouse and store-to-store consolidations to maximize sales and minimize inventory • Introduced a permanent offer along with mutual stock leading to sell-through optimization. • Opened Costa Mesa store from team recruitment, to construction site follow-up, store training, merchandising assortment and set-up of the store, followed by double digit growth every year. • Worked closely with visual team to implement visual merchandising directives from Italy and cater them to our business needs while keeping the integrity of the brand Achievements: • Implemented a successful product assortment optimization project resulting in a +35% increase in wholesale orders and a +40% boost in retail network turnover (+13% L4L) within the first year. This project involved spending 25% of my time in-store to gather client feedback and using strong analytical insights to influence Central Merchandising. • Effectively spearheaded the opening of the Costa Mesa store, and built a top-performing team that achieved the #1 store ranking in RV US within the first year, and #2 store ranking in Tods group US within three years. This accomplishment was made possible by establishing strong relationships with senior and cross-functional teams.
Reporting to Global Sales and Merchandising Director, 10 stores across Asia, Europe and US. Context: Job created to provide a more structured merchandising vision to sustain the business growth •Worked with design and store managers to define the merchandising plan and to rationalize the product offer •Rolled out VM guidelines and trainings to improve local teams product knowledge in-store •Implemented detailed reports of collection performance •Collaborated with production and IT to set new delivery rules for a better consistency in-store
Reporting to Business Unit Director Context: Product offer repositioning •Defined and implemented the global core assortment by type of store •Worked closely with buyers to ensure consistency between their buy and the new product strategy •Managed and set-up permanent product inventory and store replenishment •Coordinated the development and set-up of the new global visual merchandising tool concept •Participated to the elaboration and the presentation of the annual budget and strategic plan •Management of Korean DFS account