Katarzyna Szczotarska
I am a Paris based Creative Director/Consultant with over 20 years of international experience shaping creative direction and product strategy for fashion and lifestyle brands across Europe and Asia. In Asia my particular strength is China where I have been consulting since 2014 (with a brief break during pandemic). My last assignment in China was in 2024. I am extremely familiar with the Chinese market - regional differences, cultural and social requirements. My background includes serving as Directrice de Collection at Maison Martin Margiela, launching my own award-winning label, and having work acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. In the past years, I have focused on design consultancy, strengthening creative identity, collection editing and merchandising, as well as facilitating team collaboration for brands in both premium and fast-growth markets. Today, I continue to draw on this international experience, combining creative insight with a profound understanding of how a right creative vision can enhance the brand appeal and at the same time deliver financial results. My work is defined by a pragmatic yet creative approach to fashion and design industry. I value commitment to quality, originality, and collaboration— elements that are indispensable in my approach to every mission and partner.
Fashion Consultancy for the luxury/Pret-a-Porter industry. International experience - Europe, Americas and Asia.
Oversaw the colour and trend direction for menswear, womenswear and accessories collections, collaborating closely with product strategy and merchandising teams.
Visiting Lecturer for the final year BA Fashion Design students. Lead lecturer in charge of graduation womenswear pathway and menswear pathway collections.
Name sake Pret-a-Porter womenswear collecton Collection distributed worldwide in department stores and independent high fashion boutiques -Harrods,London; Dover Street Market,London, Antonioli, Milan, Isetan, Tokyo, IT Hong Kong.
Responsible for the following collections : line '1' , Artisanal , line '6' , line '10' (menswear) and line '22' (footwear). Management of internal 4 designers and 3 freelance designers. In charge of collections' development and planning. Responsible for the presentation of the collections to the international agents and distributors: preparation of the notes explaining the design concepts for each collection, preparation and presentation of collections' silhouettes, preparation of notes on fabrics in the collections.
Senior Designer working on Burton Menswear, TOP MAN and TOP SHOP collections. Design direction presentations to the senior management, buyers' teams and merchandising teams. Developing concepts and ideas for various product groups - jeanswear, woven and knitwear. Presenting colour, print and fabric direction to the buying teams. Following the product design and development with various buyers' teams.
I have worked with Katarzyna on many projects during our collaboration at Maison Martin Margiela. I was sincerely impressed by her skills of organisation, comprehension, and mostly her capacity to overcome constrains providing witty outputs. Among other skills, I noticed her everyday-scale competence to run humanly any kind of matter that would arise in the team, to solve them in an intelligent and sensible way. Katarzyna is a most valuable person to be part of a creative team.
I have been assisting Katarzyna during her consultancy work assignments in China between 2014 - 2019. She has been a great person to work with - sensitive, fitting into the asian companies’ culture with ease and making friends and good colleagues along the way. At that time I was working for IBIC company, which represented several foreign Design Consultants in China. Katarzyna has been IBIC’s one of the longest clients, since 2014 till 2020, when pandemic made it impossible for her to travel to China. Katarzyna has consulted for several some of the biggest Chinese fashion companies in Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai. The IBIC agency’s clients have enormously appreciated her work as her assistance always helped to improve brand’s direction - product, communication and sales. In every consultancy she has consistently achieved required results on a creative level as well as financial.
j’ai eu l’occasion de travailler avec Katarzyna lors d’un projet pop up chez Harrods à Londres pour la maison Valentino en 2017. Katarzyna nous a notamment aidé à cibler les pièces à mettre en showroom pour la clientèle Harrods et à participer au montage de la présentation. J’ai eu beaucoup de plaisir lors de cette collaboration. Katarzyna étant très compétente, elle aura vraiment contribué au succès de ce projet.