Coaching and advisory · fashion and luxury
I coach people in fashion at two points in a career: when you are working towards a senior role, and when you hold one and have to make and defend big decisions. I developed product at Burberry and at Adidas, ran a knitwear factory, and trained in psychology and CBT.
Tell me where you are and where you want to get to. You hear back within two working days to arrange a first call, with no obligation on either side.
Experience across
Career experience and speaking invitations
I developed product for Burberry and Adidas, then ran a knitwear factory that made for houses like them. Everything I coach and advise on comes from having done both jobs.
Coaching
One is for people working towards a senior role. The other is for leaders who hold one and have to make the big decisions.
For your next role
For people in fashion and luxury working towards a senior role or a bigger scope: the role you want, how you come across with the people who decide, reading senior dynamics, and keeping your standards as your responsibilities grow.
For leaders
For directors and executives who have to make and defend decisions the whole business will live with, including the technology ones: a call before each big decision, a monthly session in between, and a thinking partner who has been on the product side.
Advisory · for brands, their suppliers and their investors
Independent judgement on product, process and technology decisions in fashion, from someone who has made the product on both sides of the factory line and has no software to sell. Four ways to work with me, each before you commit, and each ends in a written recommendation.
The evidence ladder
Evidence for one rung tells you nothing about the next, and too many decisions are made on the first rung as if they had reached the fifth.
The five rules, and where AI is already doing a real jobWho
I grew up in a knitwear factory that supplied luxury houses, developed product at Burberry and at Adidas on the Adidas for Stella McCartney line, then ran the factory. What you get from that is someone who can tell a workflow problem from a technology problem, and who has spoken about this for Lectra, London College of Fashion and Kingston University, where I did my MA.
I also write Inside Product Development, a newsletter on the unseen work that makes every product possible.
About me
The brand side
Specification, materials, construction, sampling and the handovers between design, technical and the factory, at Burberry and on the Adidas for Stella McCartney line. The decisions and the detail behind a product before it reaches the customer.
The factory side
Samples, approvals, lead times and a house’s requirements seen from the other side of the table. A practical understanding of what a brand expects and what a factory can deliver.
The coaching side
Coaching training in psychology and cognitive behavioural approaches, applied to the two moments I know from the inside: working towards the senior role, and holding one when the decisions are yours.
Journal · Luxury by Design
Short reads of what fashion and luxury houses say about technology and AI, each placed on the evidence ladder using the company’s own documents, and notes on the method behind them.