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Creative Director, Apparel, Accessories

Creative & Design

Creative Director, Apparel, Accessories
BERNGUESS CONSULTANCY, Los Angeles, USA
5/2013-Present
Consultant to US, UK and European based specialty and chain retailers.

• Premier Specialty store 300 in South Africa, 60 stores across Africa and 40 stores in Australia through David Jones.  Annual Volume of 2 Billion Dollars in sales.
• Managed a team of 60 Designers and 20 Artists.
• Responsibility for 2 Billion in sales across
  -Women s Wear, WW Classic - Premium, Studio W, Edition, RE Denim
 -Accessories, Footwear
 - Men s Wear, WW Classic - Premium, Studio W, Edition, RE Denim
 -Children s Wear, Girls, Boys, Baby ,Infant
 -Lingerie - Sleepwear, Classic, Modern, Studio W, JT, Destruction
 - Home, WW Classic - Premium, Modern, Studio W,
• Instituted first Design and Trend team
• Established Freelance design organization throughout the world.
• Built Design and innovation process across all areas.
• Turned around Men s Wear, Kid s Wear and Classic Women s Wear.
• Developed South African Fashion Week collaborations with leading African and International Designers.

GM VP Design and Trend Apparel Accessories Home

SVP Design Trend Art
Children s Place, New York, USA
1/2014- 01/2015
• Children s specialty store of 1000 across the United States, Canada and license stores across Europe, Middle East, China. Annual volume of $2 billion in sales.
• Managed a team of 60 designers, divided by 35 designers and 25 Artists.
• Responsibility for 2 billion in sales across
 -Big Girls, Baby Girls, New Born, Infant, Big Boy, Baby Boy, Accessories, Shoes.
• Established " Fast Fashion " concept for kid's clothes.
• Developed " cost engineering " across design, technical design and sourcing.
• Rebuilt design team in New York and product development team in Hong Kong and established a more efficient design development process.

SVP Design Trend Art

• Mid-tier level department store of 350 across Australia.  Annual volume of $4 billion in sales.
• Design Art Trend Art for Apparel Accessories Home and Packaging.
• Managed a team of 50 Designers, divided by 30 Designers and 10 Artists in Australia and 10 Designers in Hong Kong.
• Responsibility for $3.5 billion dollars in sales across multiple areas and brands.
 -Women's - Juniors (Free Fusion, Fast Fashion), Surf (Piping Hot), Contemporary Modern (Hot Options, Fast Fashion), Contemporary Classic (Target brand), Active (Target brand), Intimates, Designer Collection Collaboration "Roberto Cavalli",
"Dita Von Teese",
 - Accessories - all Target brands,
 - Footwear - all Target brands,
 - Men's - Young Men's (Target brand), Contemporary (Target brand), Classic (Target brand),
 -Kid s - Tween (1 D), 7-16 (Target brand), Girls and Boys (Target brand), Toddler, Newborn, Baby (Mocking Bird and Target brand), Designer Collection "Collette Dinnigan",
 -Trend - all of Target,
 -Packaging - all of Target.
• Built and hired an international, global design team in Australia and Hong Kong.
• Build design and development process - calendar for the organization to create synergy across all areas.
• Built process for a global trend message and clear brand differentiation across all areas, and communicated key messages to Design and Art, Merchants, DMM's, GMM's and CEO, Marketing, Packaging, and Store Communication.
• Developed a "Fast Fashion Process" for the women's area.
• Built and managed a global travel calendar, budget, goals and expectation, trend center with global trend consultant, succession plan for the design organization in collaboration with Australian and international colleges.
• Built key product and range strategy for OMNI channel roll-out at Target Australia
• Developed key assortments for a new store format, called the "Urban Store", which represented a smaller specialty store format for Target Australia.
• Developed special event strategies in design, example: "Christmas Strategy" to entice the customer for special events and therefore generated increase in sales.
• Collaborated on " International Designer Collection" collaborations for Target.

Creative Director GM SVP / Design Trend Art Packaging Apparel Home

VP of Design Apparel
KOHL'S, USA
11/2005-6/2011
• Mid-tier-level department store of 1150 across the United States.
• Annual volume of $16 billion dollars in sales.
• Managed a team of 60 Designers, divided by 40 Designers and 20 Artists.
• Responsibility for approximately $7 billion dollars in sales across multiple areas and brands.
 - Women's/Juniors/Contemporary/Modern Classic/Active/Intimates,
 -Accessories,
 -Men's/Young Men's/Contemporary/Modern Classic,
 -Children's/'Tween/Girls and Boys, and
 -Home Soft/Hard Goods.
• Doubled volume in sales in four and a half years from $3 billion to approximately $7 billion (45 % of total volume) by developing trend, brand and customer-right product.
• Launched several key brands for Kohl's like Tony Hawk (Skate), Elle (Magazine), Lauren Conrad (Celebrity), Mudd (Juniors Vintage), Jumping Beans (Children's).  Key brands who have been a great success for Kohl's and generated incremental volume of $1 billion in sales across all business categories.
• Communicated and presented a clear vision and point of view for Design to all key stake holders (Merchants, Product Management, Technical Design, Marketing, Trend, Customer) and therefore increased buy in, trust and relationships across all areas.
• Developed key design templates and presentation tools for all brands across all areas and therefore developed a common and focused design language for the organization.
• Developed a new research and development process, which reduced the "in store" development time (from concept to delivery) by 30 %. (9 to 24 weeks in store for main line, 4-8 weeks for knit programs).
• Built and hired a design team from scratch, by starting with 5 Designers to a total of 40 Designers and 20 Artists, and with up to 10 direct reports.  Setting team and personal goals for them and created an inspiring, exciting, innovative and driven environment.
• Enabled and coached team to excel in expectations and therefore increased creativity and profitability for Kohl's.
• Developed key relationships and projects with design colleges throughout the USA, to build the future talent pool for the organization.
• Developed and managed key development processes and "best practice" models for the design department to maximize the efficiency for design, for example:
 - A sweater process for early sweater development.
 - An aggressive testing strategy to gain customer knowledge and to discover the next "it" item.
 - A strategic travel plan for design teams worldwide (Domestic, Europe, and Asia) to support design and product development.
 -A design and art budget for all groups
 -Multiple development calendars for all seasons across all divisions.
 -Key milestone differentiation meetings to keep brand identity across the store.
• Helped and supported tremendous store growth from 550 stores to 1050 stores across the United States, and to become one of the best national retailer, therefore, developed key strategies for climate zones and created the right balance of design and product in-store.
• Integrated demographic based research in the design process and delivered a customer right product.

VP of Design Apparel

Design Director, Women's Apparel Design and Art
TARGET, USA
11/2002-11/2005
• Mass retailer with 1750 stores across the United States.  Annual volume of $55 billion dollars in sales.  Managed a team of 20 Designers, divided by 15 Designers and 5 Artists.  Responsibility for $2 billion dollars in sales across all of the women's brands.
 -Women's Juniors (Xhilaration), Contemporary (Merona), Modern Casual (Cherokee), Active (Pro Spirit), Maternity (In Due Time), Plus Sizes (all brands), Women s Collaboration, Juniors (Mossimo Red), Contemporary (Mossimo Black), Designer Collection Isaac Mizrahi, Designer Collection Liz Lange, Active (C9 by Champion).
• Developed Target as a destination for trend right, customer right and value right product.  In collaboration, influenced marketing with the right trend messages to entice the customer and therefore developed Target as a hip and tasteful destination to shop.
• Achieved to be presented the "Golden" award two years in a row with women's design, as the most successful area in all of apparel at Target, which generated $200 million in sales increases over plan.
• Developed several successful key category programs, which produced a $75 million dollar increase in sales over plan, for example: The "Ultimate Essential" program, key essentials with superior quality and frequent color updates.
 -A key bottoms strategy for Contemporary and a casual suiting program for Contemporary.
• Turned a previously unsuccessful Juniors area around, to be successful by implementing "the right trend at the right time" in store, and by focusing on quicker trend adoption for the Juniors customer.
• Developed a "Fast Fashion - Runway to Reality" strategy and process for the Junior Department which then translated into a "Best Practice Model" for quick turnaround items for all of women's apparel.
• Launched the high-end designer brand "Isaac Mizrahi for Target" in collaboration with Designer.
• Launched the high-end designer maternity brand "Liz Lange for Target" in collaboration with Designer.
• Collaborated on the "Go International" designer program for Target, an ongoing limited collection from different designers around the globe.

Design Director, Women's Apparel Design and Art

Design Director, Women's and Men's
NORDSTROM, USA
9/1999-11/2002
• High-end luxury department store 200 across the United States.  Annual volume of $6 billion.
• Managed a team of 25, divided by 18 Designers and 7 Technical Designers.
• Responsibility of 100 - $300 million in sales across multiple areas and brands.
 -Women's - Young Contemporary (Halogen), Juniors (Rack Outlet), Contemporary Classic (Catalog), Classic (Classiques), Men's - Young Contemporary (Halogen), Young Men's (Pure Stuff).
• Developed the Halogen design philosophy and product line for women's and men's.  Developed the key fit for all brand categories in Halogen.
• Developed a key denim bottoms program.
• Developed design direction, color, trend, fabric, and product for the U.S. and Japan market for Halogen.  Developed key presentations and fashion shows for the Halogen brand.
• Built new design teams for the Rack Outlet division, the .COM division, the catalog division and developed design and customer right product for each, which generated incremental sales of $100 million.

Design Director, Women's and Men's

Senior Designer Women's
ELIE TAHARI AND THEORY, New York, USA	9/1996-9/1999
• High-end designer brand distributed in high-end department and specialty stores globally.  Annual volume of $300 million dollars in sales.
• Managed a team of three Designers.
• Responsibility for sketching, designing and managing women's design, including fabric research, trim research, trend research, color research and styling.
• Responsibility for sample development of all lines, in direct liaison with all pattern makers and sample room, to establish production ready samples.
• Responsibility for range planning and costing the line.
• Responsibility for presenting and styling the finalized collection to high level management, Marketing, Buyers and Editors.

Senior Designer Women's

Designer, Women's Prêt á Porter, Diffusion and Licensees
EMANUEL UNGARO, Paris, France
7/1995-9/1996
• High-end Luxury Couture and Prêt á Porter, fashion house distributed globally through their own boutique store network, high-end department and specialty stores.  Annual volume of $500 million dollars in sales.
• Responsibility for designing and styling women's Prêt á Porter and runway collection,
• Responsibility for fabric research, print development, trim development, sample development in direct interaction with the Paris studio and GFT Italy.

Designer, Women's Prêt á Porter, Diffusion and Licensees

Designer, Women's

Find out detailed information about Bernhard Guessregen, Creative Director, Apparel, Accessories in Temecula, CA

Bernhard Guessregen: Creative Director, Apparel, Accessories in Temecula, CA

Bernhard Guessregen

Royal College of Art and Design

University of Hamburg