‘Inclusive and inspiring’: Zalando’s future womenswear plans

Zalando, one of Europe’s biggest online fashion retailers, wants to
offer more inspiration and become more inclusive to women, , who heads the womenswear segment at
the Berlin-based company, told FashionUnited in her first interview since
she joined Zalando in September. The head of the womenswear segment spoke
about the future strategy for womenswear, upcoming trends for the
autumn/winter 2019 season, and the bad weather.

After a career at Inditex and Nike, why did you choose to become Vice
President Category Women at Zalando?

I started my career at Inditex, working for the main brand Zara. At that
time we also started Zara.com, that was like the starting moment for what
digital could mean for the retail business. Then, I moved to Amsterdam to
work for Nike. The commonality was the digital business. At Nike, I also
had the chance to lead the Nike.com business and the store. It was at the
time of thinking digital first. So, naturally, Zalando felt like the right
place for me to progress my career. It was super attractive for me to come
to a pure online player and learn from it. Something interesting to me was
also the decision-making that is much more data-driven.

What plans do you have as the new head for womenswear at Zalando?

We’re investing in areas in order to become really inclusive. We’re
serving fashion to everybody and that, of course, includes extended sizes.
We’re exploring sizes for every single body type and shape, from petite to
tall. Plus sizes are the biggest part of this business – we’re growing with
60 percent in this area. Another area of the business that we’re definitely
focusing on is our premium area. We see that there is a lot of inspiration
that comes from those brands and we’re able to bring some of them
exclusively to Europe.”

How will Zalando offer more inspiration?

We’re making an effort to become the platform for smaller, highly
inspirational brands that will make us highly relevant in our local
markets. Right now, we’re exploring ways to incorporate Korean brands that
are relevant and we want to be the one that brings them to Europe. We also
have some brands exclusively from Los Angeles for European consumers.

The head of a German competitor likes to call Zalando and Amazon
“searchable online warehouses”. Besides of adding more premium brands, what
else could Zalando do to cast off this nickname?

When it comes to a data-driven approach, the main game changer is going
to be personalisation. Zalando has heavily invested in this with a team of
600 people purely focusing on this topic. More and more content has been
created, but not everyone is seeing the same content. We’re tailoring
assortment based on your preferences and your history. That will be the
best way to have such a big assortment of 300,000 products – to make it
truly curated towards different consumers and not becoming an overwhelming
experience.

The weather impacted the earnings of many fashion companies in 2018, What could you do asincluding a buyer
in the future to deal with erratic conditions?

We’re facing massive changes related to the weather. What happened in
the third quarter was completely unprecedented. To a certain extent we have
been able to navigate around this but we’re also still applying what we’ve
learnt. We’re looking at the collections differently. When we’re expecting
a cold January and February, we probably need to carry on more of the
winter stuff. This approach differs from how fashion was planned in the
past, where you could find spring products already in January. We always
need to be ready and that is why the transitional collections can help.

Sustainability is fashion’s ubiquitous buzzword at the moment. What is
Zalando doing here?

We already have more than 11,000 items flagged with “sustainability” but
we’re only just getting started. We’re partnering with key brands and we
have more to add to our portfolio. We at Zalando would like to be in there
now, rather than later, because we know how important this is and we also
feel that we have a responsibility towards people and our planet. We have
made a lot of steps with our private labels already. By 2020, 50 percent of
the cotton for our private labels will be sourced as Better Cotton.
[Note: The production of ‘Better Cotton’ follows more sustainable
methods.]

Which trends do you see for the coming autumn/winter 2019 season?

Animal prints will come in different styles, even neon colours, purple,
red or black. They may also be paired with the new trend for cowboy boots.
For a feminine touch, cowboy boots can be combined with soft floral prints
and long dresses for a total look – for a boho style. We also see trends
from the seventies like midi dresses and skirts, and pants in many
different shapes and forms. There is also continuity with streetwear, with
these chunky sneakers. It started with Balenciaga and now the generic
consumer is truly buying into it. We’re also expecting to still see logos
for the next season.