About Kendall Cresci
My name is Kendall Cresci. I’m a UD alumnus who graduated in 2017 with a BS in Fashion Merchandising and a minor in Business Administration. I have loved fashion since I was little, with my mom dressing me up like her little doll. I would break into my mom and grandmother’s closets, decking myself out in their clothes, jewelry, and high heels. In elementary and high school, I always loved math and science classes, figuring out how and why things “worked.” In high school, my mom mentioned there were jobs in fashion beyond being a designer, jobs where I could combine my love for fashion with my skills in analytics. My brain exploded, realizing I could build a career path that merges my passion for fashion with my eye for analytics.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this interview are those of Kendall Cresci and do not reflect the views or positions of her employer or any affiliated organizations.
Sheng: Can you briefly share your career path? For example, what was your first job after graduation, what different roles did you take before your current position, and what were some of the most important career transition moments along the way?
Kendall: After graduating from UD in May 2017, I had the opportunity to move to NYC the following fall, and I jumped on it. Determined to get my foot in the door but unsure whether merchandising was for me, I soon landed a contracting Assistant Developer-to-Designer role at Jane Post Rainwear. As part of a small team (three people total), I saw firsthand how a garment transitions from a sketch to a proto to bulk production. I was hooked and knew Product Development was for me.
That December, I was hired full-time as the Product Development Coordinator at Joan Rivers Worldwide, a legacy costume jewelry and apparel line for QVC. A few months in, the Senior Product Developer left, and I was thrown in to manage 4 lines across 4 seasons as the sole Developer. As one of ten employees, I was exposed to product timelines, sourcing, production, costing, quality assurance (QA), and marketing, giving me a broader macro view of the product lifecycle than I could have imagined learning in my first professional role.
About 2 years later, I transitioned to a Product & Design Development Associate role for Creare Group. Again joining a small team, the New York office was a design studio representing the vertical factories located in Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Indo. This was crucial at the time, as the industry was shifting away from China production amid stricter labor laws and higher tariffs. I owned menswear shirting development with designers from 12 major brands, cutting out the middleman (and many transportation fees) by offering fast yarn-to-garment production in one factory location.
Then COVID-19 hit. Like much of the world, I was furloughed because of emergency closures, reduced consumer spending, and almost no demand for suiting and shirting. As the world slowly began to recover, I was hired as a Product Development Associate for InPrivate, the main vendor for women’s and girls’ swimwear at Target. I was thrown into a fast-paced, competitive development work culture that deepened my end-to-end product knowledge. Balancing design, fabric, and trim development, along with fit meetings, our team grew rapidly and quadrupled our initial stock-keeping unit (SKU) allocation from Target.
Three years later, I accepted a Product Developer role on Victoria’s Secret’s Very Sexy Intimates & Lingerie team. My previous positions prepared me to jump into the high-glamour role. I can confidently say I understand the garment industry’s needs before and after the pandemic, how global legislation can fundamentally reshape sourcing decisions and affect vendors and sourcing countries, and how the industry can stay relevant in an increasingly platform-driven marketplace.
Sheng: What are your main responsibilities as a Product Developer for Victoria’s Secret? Could you walk us through what a typical day or week looks like? What aspects of the job do you find most interesting or rewarding?
Kendall: My favorite part about being a Product Developer is that there is no “typical day.” Product Developers own the product and all its components—my job is to keep internal and external teams moving and mitigate any problems that arise. Staying on top of daily communication with vendors and internal cross-functional teams is crucial to ensure samples/raw materials arrive on time and costs stay on target. Weekly, I’m in the office 2 days, attending fit meetings with Design and Technical Design teams, where we review protos on live models. Seasonally, all teams come together in our NY office, and we hold full-season assortment meetings that run through complete season buys. Although the weeks are very long, these assortment meetings are my favorite, and paired with my weekly fit meetings, this is when we see style-level and collection-level truly come to life.
There is no feeling like walking into the store and seeing your product shine! I love seeing customer pictures or strangers wearing our product on the streets around the city (I will stop you and ask for your honest review and ways to improve!!). The hands-down best moment of my life was seeing my product strut down the VS Fashion Show runway worn by models I adored when growing up. Yes, I cried.
Sheng: You have primarily focused on intimate clothing and swimwear. Could you give us an overview of the main process for taking intimate wear and swimwear from an initial design concept to a finished product? At what stages does the Product Developer play the most important role?
Kendall: From design sketch handoff through bulk production, Product Development shines!
Before I even receive sketches from the Design team, my team partners with the Design and Raw Materials teams to ensure the fabrics and trims that we want to kick off for the next season are developed. We review lead times and minimum order quantities (MOQs), request testing to ensure they pass the national and brand quality guidelines, and run cost estimates.
After sketches are handed off, I pass them to our vendors and request proto samples. This is when a flurry of vendor callouts arises to ensure all teams are clear on the design and construction intent. After receiving initial protos, I run cost meetings, alerting teams to cost challenges related to styles and helping to problem-solve how we can address them.
We then move into our weekly fit meetings until our final assortment meeting for final buys. After buys are aligned, we continue fitting until approved (within reason).
Sheng: What are some of the most important or unique product development challenges associated with intimate wear and swimwear? What technical knowledge or skills are particularly important for doing your job successfully?
Kendall: Intimates and swimwear share similar end goals: the wearer wants to feel confident in what they’re wearing while staying comfortable. We run many rounds of live-model fittings and even launch internal/external wear tests to gather survey data on wins and improvements.
In my opinion, two skills are needed to do product development successfully: first, the ability to identify problems and come up with creative solutions. For example, if a style is too expensive, it may be dropped from the assortment. Coming up with cost options to replace certain laces, elastics, hardware, etc., to achieve the target cost and present to the design team for consideration can help the style stay in the assortment.
Second, be able to adapt and pivot quickly. Buy strategies, silhouettes, fabrics, and more are changing constantly, so being able to stay on top of the changes and pivot to the new goals is imperative.
Sheng: How do you interact with your sourcing team, suppliers, and manufacturing vendors during the product development process? Could you share an example of how you work with a vendor to solve a product development, quality, cost, or production issue?
Kendall: Emails, Teams chats, and Teams meetings!
It is important to note that all vendors are overseas, so the majority of our communication is via email. We need to ensure that when we communicate, we write clearly and concisely so the other team can act quickly when they receive our emails. This can be particularly tricky, especially when our overseas vendors’ native language is not English. For example, recently, the Merchant team adjusted their order quantity, decreasing units for an upcoming season after we had already committed to the materials. When the Production team submitted the new units to the vendor, the vendor advised that a certain elastic was already halfway through sewing and dyeing the original larger quantity, resulting in excess yardage and a liability charge. The Production team called this out to my team, and we were able to work with the Merchants and make a plan to buy that same style and colorway in the next two upcoming seasons. We advised the vendor to continue with the original elastic yardage order and hold any excess for orders coming in the next two seasons. Through clear communication, the vendor, Production, Product Development (PD), and Merch teams were able to tackle and resolve a problem across the country and across the globe in less than 10 hours!
Sheng: How do sustainability, material traceability, product safety, social compliance, or other regulatory requirements affect your work as a Product Developer? Have these considerations changed how you work with suppliers or evaluate materials and products?
Kendall: The USA has its own laws on material and labor traceability, product safety, social compliance, and regulatory requirements. Most companies have their own, often stricter, requirements.
For example, we’ve used a specific red rhinestone color on a long-running shine strap bra. Victoria’s Secret’s Compliance team recently increased our company-wide color regulation requirements for trims due to toxic exposures in supplier mills during dyeing and development. The red rhinestone we had been using no longer achieved the updated requirements, and we had to source a new comparable color. While it was a unique callout, I’m always supportive of regulations that prioritize worker and environmental health.
Sheng: Reflecting on your time at UD and in FASH, what experiences helped prepare you for your career? For students interested in working for a global apparel company like Victoria’s Secret, what advice would you give them to prepare for their first job and stand out during the recruiting process?
Kendall: I have several favorite classes at UD: Prof. Martha taught us that apparel can be much more than just clothes, changing people’s daily lives based on their different abilities and needs. Prof. Sheng Lu’s FASH455 (global apparel trade and sourcing) taught us about global regulations and treaties that directly affect how product-sourcing markets shape the industry’s capabilities. I also take many of Professor Huantian Cao’s FASH215 (Textiles) classes on yarn/fabric treatments, Professor Shaffer’s FASH 330 (Merchandise planning) retail math class, and a business elective on Excel (PS: I LIVE in Excel).
When I’m interviewing candidates for hire, I look for drive and passion for the product. It’s not necessarily about the experience you have – I can teach processes all day, but I can’t teach someone who doesn’t want to learn. Also, learning Excel basics is a MUST!
As for advice, research all kinds of fashion industry jobs – there is SO much more to the industry than Merchants and Designers! Your degree or first position may not be where you find your passion and skills.
I welcome any students to connect with me on LinkedIn, and feel free to message me with any questions!
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