Olesia Smolova
Multilingual and at home in international, multicultural environments, I bring over 15 years of senior leadership experience across luxury fashion merchandising, strategy, and law. Over 8 years at Gianni Versace, I built and shaped the Women's collection strategy across RTW, Underwear, Beachwear, and Soft Accessories — steering through two major shifts in creative and ownership leadership while consistently delivering strong, commercially grounded collections. I have a proven ability to turn creative vision into commercially viable product architectures, and now bring this same lens to independent consultancy work in product strategy, commercial planning, brand positioning, and product and collection direction — helping brands translate creative ambition into commercial success. A legal background — including time at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom — brings an analytical sharpness that sets me apart in a creative industry.
Reporting into SVP of Global Merchandising and Licensing
Reporting into Vice President of Collection Merchandising
Reporting into Senior Director of Collection Merchandising
Reporting into Senior Director of Collection Merchandising
Reporting into CEO
* Leading Italian luxury brand (Florence, Italy) field project: Developed a 360° strategy for brand’s most iconic collection * Finalist of the LVMH and Loro Piana Business Challenge * Selected to participate in the INSIDE LVMH 2016
• Advised HNW individuals with regards to property transactions and immigration matters • Identified opportunities for growth in collaboration with investment banks
Member of the international litigation/arbitration team, ranked number one in the UK by Legal 500
Olesia perfectly represents the profile of a Senior collection merchandising manager. With strong taste, keen eye to fashion trends and passion for luxury world, she has the right attitude to handle with such a hard and complex job. She shows high sensitivity to product contents and matters. She has a strong analytical approach. She is methodic, well-organized and always striving to efficiency. Olesia is a very good team player, but, at the same time, she shows high leadership qualities when driving specific projects and involving people from different departments. She is result-oriented, but still careful to relations and people, as she strongly considers the importance of cooperation and sharing in completing every task and activity. Olesia is a reference point to the junior people of the team, always being available to lead them, teach and explain the merchandising topics. She is a reliable colleague for her peers, and a loyal right-hand woman to her boss and the entire team. It has been a pleasure to work with her and I wish to her all the best for her future career.