Barneys New York Goes Digital

New design for a 90-year-old luxury department store. The small in-house creative group was an agency for multiple executive teams.

The company was rooted in exceptional design. I was able to work with the fashion industry's top creatives, producing design that drove sales. A balance existed between creative liberty (to delight a luxury audience) and data-driven requirements.

The small creative team was an agency for seven executive teams: womenswear, menswear, cosmetics, home goods, denim, jewelry, and handbags. Each was treated with different strategies and campaign direction.

While Barneys was a brick-and-mortar landmark, the team responded to e-commerce pressure. I worked on marketing efforts like microsites, the first online lookbooks, environmental signage, and email campaigns to drive shoppers to new products.

I worked on B-Social, the first site for Barneys social media content and select merchandise – monetizing social before tools existed.

CREATIVE DIRECTION

Lina Kutsovskaya

A four-year-old fast fashion retailer enters new markets.

Relaunching a startup's e-commerce operations as it expanded brick-and-mortar nationwide.

I was this company's first designer. I changed the business' approach to design, set meaningful KPIs, and implemented a roadmap for a creative department.

First, 25 brick and mortar locations required branded creative assets. The company used a bottom-up marketing style (store managers were event promoters), and grassroots events at each location generated traffic – both online and in-store. I established a workflow that allowed us to produce the high volume of content that a fast-fashion business demands.

To create consistent environments at each location, I produced promotional signage, window decals, email templates, and social media content. I gradually increased marketing ROI by A/B testing deliverables.

I owned Facebook paid media budgeting and performance measurement. We ran experiments to optimize campaigns, landing surfaces, and show positive ROAS.

Then, we approached the website with a new merchandising strategy and began again. I led a team of five through the relaunch. I onboarded an agency and worked with them to measure positive returns. The relaunch campaign included email, paid media buys on Facebook, a Pinterest-based contest, and PR placements with on-brand influencers.

Key Tools

Photography Studio
Magento and UPS eFullfillment
Facebook
Bronto
Adobe Creative Suite
Google Analytics