Justina McCaffrey build Haute Couture from the ground up with no resources, and in an unlikely place in North America – Quebec, Canada. The fashion design industry is highly-competitive. Other design houses were well-funded and had reserves of millions from either existing family wealth or other stakeholder relationships.
“I worked with an extremely tight budget to compete with the other more established design houses. I traveled 45 out of 52 weekends for personal appearances at retail store trunk shows, so as to build strong industry relationships. I developed compelling marketing advertisements that were featured and appeared right next to the well-funded design houses’ ads. Finally, I galvanized relationships with banks and government institutions in both English and French.”
Justina McCaffrey
Fashion, Arts, & Entertainment Executive
“After a few years, I realized the design house’s employees were getting older. There was a lack of new employees with the gift or interest to sew in the factory’s Ottawa, Canada location.”
Justina discovered another garment-making factory in Ottawa that created leisurewear. She acquired this company to grow the employee base and build a strong distribution of moderately priced garments. Over time, grew the abilities of each worker to become strong couturier artisans. Then, leveraged overseas contacts to handle all leisurewear orders.
As a result of the acquisition, Justina McCaffrey Haute Couture’s operations and distribution grew by 150% and the number of artisan employees increased by 10%.
“I stood as a candidate for the 2019 Canadian federal election. This required building a large team of volunteers needed to reach out to the constituency at large.”
By leveraging previously earned manufacturing degrees within the fashion industry, Justina announced a plan to create an organization that emulated a garment factory. This was a unique approach, to say the least.
Justina analyzed volunteer operations and streamlined each function to ensure each volunteer became an expert in their assigned function. The workforce then continued to grow, and the volunteers communicated to others how enjoyable their experience was.
This significant efficiency improvement led to an astounding number of doors knocked and weekly national awards for the campaign. Furthermore, the volunteers’ loyalty increased as they were extremely happy with the direct results of their work.
Justina Successfully grew the company from $0 to $10 million. Justina McCaffrey Haute Couture became one of the top wedding dress design houses with the number one best-selling dresses within 90% of each retail store account.
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Contact Justina McCaffrey via LinkedIn or her Career WebFolio.
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