KAREN MILLEN - 2021-2022
CREATIVE DIRECTION + BRAND STRATEGY

In 2020, Karen Millen went into administration and was acquired by the Boohoo Group, stripped of its stores and rebuilt from scratch as a pure-play ecommerce business. The brand had genuine equity, a loyal customer base and almost 40 years of heritage. But it had no direction, a dated visual identity, a broken digital experience, and a product pricing strategy that had priced out its own customer. All of this with a global pandemic hitting at the same time.

The Boohoo Group brought me in for my expertise in elevating and repositioning fashion brands. The task was clear: transform Karen Millen into a credible online-only fashion brand, repositioning price points 30% below the old business to widen accessibility, while lifting the brand to sit alongside Massimo Dutti and Mango rather than compete on price with Zara.

Fast, considered, and built for the modern woman.

I headed up the full rebrand and brand strategy, shaping everything from creative vision to team structure. My first move was the ecommerce gallery. A full audit and rework of poses, styling, casting, lighting and art direction. I introduced a new casting direction, elevated the styling approach and invested in a stronger wardrobe, tightening retouching standards across the board.

A one-month test and learn rollout delivered a 12% decrease in return rate in the first quarter through PDP asset improvements alone.

I overhauled the full visual identity: reworking colour, typography and logo, taking the brand’s signature orange from garish nineties branding to a richer, more premium burnt tone fit for a digital-first brand. I defined the brand platform, Everyday Elevated, and built the customer profile, tone of voice and creative direction around a woman who used style to express her identity and expected quality at every touchpoint. I restructured the full website, aligning the experience to how women actually shop today.

I delivered seven campaigns across the year with assets spanning TV, OOH and social, built an influencer ecosystem from scratch with a tiered strategy across gifted, paid and brand ambassador partnerships, and secured a high-profile collaboration with Lydia Millen. I built the team, set up the systems and brought in the specialist skills needed to sustain it. All during one of the hardest trading periods in retail history.