New York, NY • galiny84@gmail.com • 347.406.0158 • https://www.galisvechinsky.com/• linkedin.com/in/gali-svechinsky/
Creative/Design Director – Intimate Apparel
Highly successful and innovative fashion industry professional providingcreative vision and identifying white space opportunities to extend the offering and maximize revenue opportunities. Accomplished leader inspiring marketing, merchandising, and creative strategies while contributing motivational vibrancy, energy, and collaboration to cross-functional teams. Skilled in relationship building, presentations, and consensus building with key internal and external decision makers. Travel extensively to Europe and Asia to identify and capitalize on emerging trends.Provide broad-basestrengths in:
Vision and Influence | Product Design & Development | Trend Research | Brand Building
Organization & Talent Management | Sourcing | Process Improvement | Best Practices
Strategic Planning | Quality Control, Fit, & Construction | Project Management | Budgeting | Negotiations
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Design Consulting | 2018 – Present
Design Consultant for leading Lingerie brands
Clients include Journelle, Cosabella and CUUP
Long-term and Short-term consulting assignments for start-ups and established luxury lingerie retailers, featuring bras, underwear, loungewear, and accessories. Challenged with tapping into multiple brands aesthetics and vision and growing the collections.
• Created collections, encompassing vision, color, storytelling, sketches, tech-packs and fittings through production readiness. Sourced all materials and communicate with vendors for sample development, changes, and approvals. Design through implementation of a strategic vision, architecting an assortment with a customer-centric approach, and the brand’s unique vision in the forefront.
• Designed and developed raw materials.
• Created impactful visuals through photography and videography for both e-commerce and editorial, defining collection point of view, story, mood, to target demographics.
• Growing professional expertise in plus size design and fit implementation from 1X-3X Bottoms, 30E – 42G Cup size
JCPenny, Dallas,TX | 2017 – 2018
Design Director, Lingerie, Sleepwear, & Accessories
Recruited by VP of Womenswear as change agent and innovator to transform the intimates and sleepwearmulti-brand departmentbyidentifying each brand, creating acohesive story that the customer could relate to, and bymaking eachbrand unique. Drove multiple categories and 8 brands for diversified sleepwear and intimates ranging from youth culture to modern, classic, and conservative, generating over $250 million in annual revenue vs. $219 million.
• Led eight-person design team in development and execution of product designs to achieve overall product strategy and merchandise objectives with a new, fresh,and modern approach to translate across categories.
• Increased sales of Ambrielle Intimates by several points; raised profits 30% and placed Ambrielle sales +45% over national brands. Introduced white space initiatives, including the first successful longline bra and Holiday special shine treatment that produced positive results.
• Achieved positive sleepwear comps with 15% - 30% higher margins and significantly higher sell-throughs (15%), a 150% increase from previous year’s assortment.
Victoria’s Secret, New York, NY | 2007 –2016
Fast track career highlighted by success in designing and launching brands that achieved significant market share and established Very Sexy as the most sought-after space in the Victoria’s Secret brand and the face of the business. Achieved record-breaking sales of $450 million in 2015, increasing Victoria’s Secret sleepwear category share across all brands from29% to 40% and propelling the core bras in the collection to be the number one selling bras in the entire business.
Lingerie Design Director, Very Sexy (2012 – 2016)
• Led six-person design team, inspiring and guiding delivery of numerous iconic and successful launch collections, including Graphic Sexy, So Obsessed, Temptation, Fearless, and Scandalous. Innovated new ideas and concepts that have become staples of the brand and a major trend for Very Sexy (meant to be seen longline bras, removable decorative details, and decorative backs).
• Promoted strong, transparent, and informative collaboration with lead merchants; optimized communication strategies and led collaborations with cross-functional teams (raw material, print and color, production, and operations).
• Traveledextensively to Asia to work directly with key suppliers to drive new ideas and ensure seamless execution, and worldwide to search for new fashion/lingerie trends.
• Executed to a six-season calendar, managing product development with overlapping deadlines and driving change, innovation, and newness.
• Delivered impactful visuals and store display concepts to upper management while working with visual and concept teams to create display looks, color, silhouette, and POV aligned with business requirements and financial goals.
Senior Designer, Sexy Little Things (2009 – 2012)
• Designed a multimillion-dollar sub-brand for Victoria’s Secret, representing what the customer wanted now, featuring the current trends that appealed to the most compulsive consumers in the store and was featured as a shop-within-a-shop and a brand-within-a-brand.
• Achieved first-year sales of $115 million and established a line that grew to $350 million annually with p its own beauty launch.
Designer, Dream Angel (2007 – 2009)
• Designed iconic Dream Angels romantic collections that positioned Dream Angels asthe second highest money-making brand within the business, with total annual sales of $235 million.
• Designed and developed the first “launch” related collection at Victoria’s’ Secret, creating a collection around the nominated bra frame that gained significant success and increased sales by double digits in second year.
• Designed the Charlotte slip that was the best-ever selling slip, reaching $35 million annual sales and becoming a key item and a volume driving style for 3 consecutive years.
Warnaco, Inc., New York, NY | 2005 – 2007
JLo Lingerie – Brand Consultant & Lead Designer
• Directed design and launch of JLo Lingerie, first national celebrity lingerie brand; introducedconcept, seasonal color, and print direction with uniquebrand image.
• Collaborated with Jennifer Lopez’s personal creative team in designing and developing a lingerie line that projected the brand’s vision and style (sexy, glamorous, playful,and feminine).
• Point person for entire JLo collection, including presenting collectionto US buyers and merchandisers and to global sales team.
Education & Professional Development
BFA, Fashion Design, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY
Technology: Adobe Photoshop | Adobe Illustrator | Microsoft Office Suite | Google Suite
Additional Information
Languages:Fluent in English, Russian, and Hebrew.
Extensive International Travel: Europe, Asia, Middle East, South America, andCentral America