# Karen Barbiere > Creative and Strategic Apparel Design Leader Location: Berkeley, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/karenbarbiere Creative leader known for brand building and business driving success through motivating and inspiring creative and cross functional teams while building process efficiencies while amplifying speed to market. Exceptional conceptual skills driven by strengths in color, art direction, storytelling, delivering big ideas and global trend analysis. ## Work Experience ### Senior Director of Design Mens, Womens, Kids, and Tween @ Stitch Fix Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | San Francisco Bay Area • Established a New Private Label Strategy to create leverage and scale across lines of business including brand consolidation, category prioritization, process innovation, and scope expansions while delivering superior client metrics, IMU and GM for the organization • Lead Creative Direction for Exclusive Brands with annual revenue of 440M or 24% of TTL revenue ($300M Women’s/$85M Men’s/$55M Kids) • Delivered 30% growth during tenure FY20-FY22 with a 66.8% margin outpacing market brands by 5bpt • Own Trend Direction for organization from concept through client in partnership with merchandising and marketing evolving content and scope to both inform and align with business strategic priorities ### Senior Director of Product Creation @ Stitch Fix Jan 2020 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco Bay Area • Lead the Women’s Exclusive Brands Product Creation team of 28 Trend, Design, Technical Design, Product Development/Production, and Freelance Artists • Drove margin improvement 1.3% and delivered a client success rate of 55.5% outpacing market brands by 2.5bpt delivering a 6bpt improvement FY20-FY22 • Directed Women’s Exclusive Brands consisting of 750 new styles/2700 new CCs through leveraging Vendor Base of 24 across 11 COO with a fully co-creation model • Strengthened infrastructure and Implemented Process Innovations through Optitex 2D and CLO 3D, Wear Testing, Vendor Co-creation, Ai/Algos tech, Miro, leveraged print development process, and data led design • Lead Sustainability initiatives with 100% of new raw materials (canopy/BCI/organic/recycled) sourced more sustainably and converting raw materials library, delivering 59% more sustainable materials for total EB in FY 22 and launching Mohnton Made with US production and a transparent and more sustainable full product life cycle • Conceptualized and implemented a “commutable” work mode for all functions to expand talent pool and create competitive flexibility in response to workforce preferences ### Senior Design Leader Softline's Private Brands @ Amazon Jan 2017 – Jan 2020 | Seattle Washington • Divisional Creative Director for Women’s Private Label • Creative Director for Amazon Essentials XLOB- Men’s, Women’s, Kid’s and Baby delivering $228M for 2019, +245% YOY, +$62M to plan/+$22M to stretch goal with an average client affinity star rating of 4.3 • Recalibrated Brand DNA while growing Amazon Essentials to the #1 volume apparel brand for the total platform in under 3 years • Lead product development initiatives, processes, tools, and design solutions for the earth’s most customer centric retailer seamlessly blending data, trend, and experience to surprise and delight clients delivering on all key initiatives • Implemented innovative design methods leveraging 3D development for +65% of Women’s seasonal development reducing cycle time and development costs while operationalizing a vendor owned development and fit process • Developed a flexible vendor assist strategy that taps into vendor areas of excellence to fuel speed and selection growth deliverables without increasing internal touch or headcount • Led accelerate initiative delivering +100PASINs/800CCs with a cycle time reduction of 45% ### Design Director, Women's Division @ Gap Global Factory Jan 2014 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco, California • Creative Director for the Women’s division including all apparel categories, accessories, sleep, active and swim for all NA and International markets with a combined annual retail volume of $650M • Clarified brand vision and created exclusive to Gap Global Factory trend concepts, seasonal big ideas, global messages, color, art and style direction delivering a 400bp GM improvement and a +7% retail comp based on product acceptance improvements in pillar categories of knits and bottoms/denim • Reduced overdevelopment and streamlined workload through earlier strategic planning, innovative development processes, earlier partner alignment to strategies, and vendor co-creation targeted at 25% of the seasonal assortment • Recruited, engaged, and developed talent with an internal team of 3, influencing a cross functional team at all levels across merchandising, technical design, fabric R&D, production, visuals, and marketing • Increased speed to market implementing multiple product life cycle calendars with +20% of receipts on a flexible timeline including in season chase, vendor-based development, flex styles, test and respond, and fabric platforming • Rebuilt pillar categories with knit systems relaunch resulting in SS knits delivering a $12M retail sales increase and denim driving positive metrics across 4 quarters ### Divisional Director of Design and Art Women's General/Petite/Plus @ Kohl's Jan 2010 – Jan 2014 | greater milwaukee area • Creative Director for Women’s private brands with a multi brand scope and a retail volume of +$1.4B annually, leading and motivating a creative team of 40+ designers and artists of all levels and influencing a cross functional team of 100+ partners • Grew total volume through regionally specific market development and E-Commerce with a store factor of +100 doors • Directed 2 of the top 5 highest performing businesses for total box driving positive metrics and comp store growth YOY • Pilot team leader for design assist initiatives leveraging vendor partner development capabilities and building workload efficiencies while enhancing speed to market • Maximized the competitive market segment opportunity within active lifestyle introducing Sonoma lounge and growing the active/fleece subcategory to +$40M within the first season • Conceptualized and launched 212 Collection of career apparel growing brand to +$100M within 2 years while delivering the highest brand GM ### Design Manager-Women's, Men's and Home @ Kohl's Jan 2005 – Jan 2010 | Greater Milwaukee Area • Led direction for the following brands/businesses in escalating scope during tenure as Design Manager-Sonoma (casual/denim) general/special sizes, Croft and Barrow (classic) general/special sizes, Apartment 9 (contemporary) general/special sizes, Tek Gear (active), Sonoma men’s, Apartment 9 men’s, Men’s outerwear, swim, lounge, non-apparel, and Sonoma Home • Created and implemented an internal talent building program in partnership with L&D to leverage expertise and build bench strength fostering talent development and engagement • Launched a collaborative seasonal design project and scholarship program with local universities to seed future talent ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/karen-barbiere --- Source: https://flows.cv/karenbarbiere JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/karenbarbiere/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13