„We Don’t Need to Please Everyone.“

My story of high stakes, soul brands, and buying for the street, not the runway.

In January, the store grows quiet. Not empty. Just muted, as if the city is holding its breath. Dresses, tops, and coats hang in neat rows, ready for a season that hasn’t started yet. I lock up a little earlier than usual. One last glance at the store. A mental note of what sold yesterday, what didn’t. Then I step out and it’s time to go: Paris.

Buying season starts when it least feels like it should. The calendar says „kickoff“. The register says „slow“. Somewhere between the two sits a number I can’t ignore: the volume I’m committing to. I get on a plane again to place orders worth serious money. For me, it doesn’t feel like shopping. It feels like a bet with real consequences. I place the orders. I pay immediately. Then I have to sell.

On the plane, I’m not scrolling runway photos for fun. I’m looking at notes, confirmations, addresses. The schedule is tight. The time between appointments is tighter. There’s no room for confusion later, because confusion costs money.

If you romanticize buying season, Paris sounds like runway glamour and champagne. In reality, it’s financial planning under harsh showroom lights – instinct versus spreadsheets – and the quiet fight against the urge to make everyone happy. I’m telling you this because you see what ends up in the store, but you almost never see what it takes to get it right.

The hardest part is that everything looks tempting when you’re tired. Everything feels „close enough“ when the day is long. That’s when you have to have your line. That’s when I stop trying to make it work and start cutting.

That urge to please everyone? Left it behind a long time ago.

Not mainstream. Just direction. 

This isn’t a rebellious mantra. It’s a filter. No bending. No chasing. No smoothing things out until everything looks the same. Of course the customer comes first. I just won’t twist myself into whatever I think someone expects until the result is interchangeable. It’s that simple: offer a clear point of view and attract people who understand it.

You can feel direction the second someone walks into the store. Either they relax, or they don’t. Either they recognize themselves in the rack, or they keep looking for something familiar. I don’t try to win everyone. I try to be clear. Fashion loves drama. I don’t. I love clarity. Because clarity protects you in an industry where every season demands the next big thing.

If I talk about goals, it’s rarely „I have to find a new brand“. It’s more like this: if something new comes in, it has to be different and still wearable. It has to add something. Not dilute what already works. Newness that makes sense. Sometimes that means walking past a „wow“ piece because the store already has its version of it. Sometimes it means buying the quieter piece because it completes the story and the customer will actually wear it.

So buying season in Paris isn’t a checklist. It’s a series of decisions you sometimes only understand months later, through sell-through, feedback, and the way customers see themselves in the mirror. I’ve seen that look in the fitting room. The pause. The shoulders drop. The „wait“ before the smile. That moment is why the buying decisions matter. 

The most intimate part of the job

Retail looks glossy from the outside. Inside, it’s personal. Customers need to feel held. Safe. I’m not being cute. It’s literal. People undress, try things on, hesitate, doubt. They stand in front of a mirror and negotiate with themselves. That’s vulnerable.

When someone comes back to the store, they share more than measurements. The longer someone works with me and my team, the more they inevitably reveal: insecurities, desires, the image they want to project. Sometimes it’s therapeutic. Sometimes it changes things. I’ll remember what they said last time. What they avoided. What they loved but didn’t buy. Not because I’m tracking them, because I’m listening. That’s the difference between selling a piece and building trust.

One customer comes to mind. She wore dresses almost exclusively. Never pants. She came in three or four times, tried on clothes, hesitated, and walked away. Then one day she leaned in. She bought the pants. Months later, she came back and told me she wore them almost every day. She thanked us – not for the product, but for our patience. For giving her the time to grow into the idea. That’s the part people don’t see. The piece was never just a piece. It was a shift.

That kind of value can’t be written into a product description. It sits behind my most important rule, and in Paris it becomes ruthless:

My products don’t need to be Instagram-worthy. They need to work in real life.

Real life, not the runway 

A showroom on an upper floor. A buzzer. A narrow hallway. Then a room that’s too bright and too warm. The rack looks perfect. The fabrics look expensive. I pull one coat, then another. On the hanger, it’s a yes.
I put it on. Two seconds. The shoulder pulls. The sleeve twists. The mirror is clear. This isn’t my customer. The rep starts talking faster, like speed can fix fit. I take it off, hang it back up, and I already know the answer. Not because it isn’t beautiful. Because it won’t survive real life.

This is how most decisions happen. Fast. Quiet. Clean.

My customers live in the real world. Not on a runway. Not in perfectly lit studios. Not in a feed that smooths everything out. They need pieces that show up on a normal Tuesday, not just in a perfect photo. I picture the piece at 8 a.m. and at a dinner party. On stairs, in rain, in a taxi. With a tote bag and with a clutch. If it can’t handle these pictures, it doesn’t come home.

That’s why influencers as a scouting source are complicated. More interesting are women who work, travel, have real taste, and discover things in real life. When women like that follow us, share, and exchange notes, those leads are often more valuable than any hyped post. Sometimes a customer sends a photo from a trip. „Saw this, thought of you.“ That’s a better signal than a trend report. It means the taste is real and the life is real.

Good showrooms matter too: curated places where new brands appear because someone with taste already did the first edit. But no matter where a brand shows up, the filter stays the same. And it’s not „trend“.

My soul checklist

People ask me what I mean when I say a brand has „soul“. For me, soul is simple: materials, quality, construction are the base. Fit that works on a body, not on Instagram. Pricing that makes sense – elevated mid range, yes, but with a line that has to hold. A brand presence that feels coherent, not loud. And I need to feel the person behind it, not just the marketing.

And the fastest soul killer? It’s not the product. It’s the partnership.

It can happen in thirty seconds. A table, a line sheet, a „friendly“ smile that isn’t friendly. I ask a simple question about delivery or support, and the answer comes back sharp. Dismissive. Like I’m asking for a favor, not doing business. That’s my cue. I don’t argue. I don’t negotiate basic respect. I thank them, close my notebook, and move on.

Why good brands still stay outside

Sometimes the hardest part is saying no to something that is objectively good. It happens like this: I’m standing in front of a rack, holding a piece I genuinely like. Great quality. Great vibe. And I still ask myself one question: where does this live in my store? If the honest answer is „it disappears“,

I’m done. Not because it’s bad. Because it doesn’t earn its space. Next to what I already carry, it wouldn’t stand out. It would get lost. Buying is not collecting. Buying is editing.

I’ve made the opposite decision before. I’ve brought in a piece because I personally loved it. It sat. It taught me something. Now I don’t need that lesson again. Buying isn’t just asking „Do I like it?“ It’s asking „Does it have a purpose?“ Does it fill a gap, or does it duplicate what’s already working? One thing I’ve learned: compromises always come back around. I’ve made them before. They’ve never paid off.

In Paris, the compromise always looks tempting. Back home, it always looks obvious.

Numbers, no magic

Before Paris buying season, I go straight to the year overview. Numbers first, collections later. Usually it’s early. The store is quiet. One coffee. One open laptop. No noise. Just reality.

Those numbers decide how free I can be in Paris. I build a seasonal budget from previous seasons – what we bought, how the store developed, what’s realistic – then I add a bump. Not because I’m optimistic. Because I want a frame I can trust when everything in Paris pushes you to say yes. I’ve watched buyers spend like the money isn’t real, because the room feels unreal. I can’t do that. My money is real. My store is real. My customer is real.

My budget isn’t broken down by brand on purpose. Collections don’t follow plans. A top brand can suddenly deliver a weak season, and then the budget becomes a trap: you buy to fill a box, not because it’s right. Flexibility matters. I have to be able to shift when something isn’t working.

When a new brand comes in, something else has to go. Usually, it’s the pieces I’m only 95 percent sure about. Those are the first to disappear. That’s how space is made. Then there are the expensive categories where I still catch my breath every time: outerwear and knitwear. These are the pieces you always see. The pieces that make a first impression. When those pieces are right, the whole look comes together.

The only number that really matters 

When it comes to metrics, I’m unsentimental. Ultimately, it’s sell-through – the total number, not the pretty theory by category. Demand doesn’t behave like a spreadsheet, so buying doesn’t get split into rigid boxes. Sometimes the truth is simple: I end up with too many pants. That’s not a failure. It’s information. It tells you where your instinct was right, and where it wasn’t. Buy too much and the result suffers. Buy too little and you have the same problem. Finding the balance, and the right pieces inside that balance, is hard. That’s where we’d need a magic crystal ball.

And then there’s the thing no one wants to admit out loud:

„If you’re prone to FOMO, this industry will eat you alive.“

Because FOMO isn’t just a feeling. It’s a buying impulse. One more label. One more drop. One more story. Suddenly, the line that made your store recognizable in the first place is gone.
You can hear it in Paris. In the hallway chatter. In the way people say „everyone is buying this“. That line is a trap. It makes you forget to ask the only question that matters: does it work for us?

Here, personality becomes a tool. Knowing who you are makes decisions easier. I know what it feels like when that disappears. There was a time when I was burned out, doubting myself, getting help, and still having to buy. During that time, I couldn’t even choose between two plain white T shirts. Two basics. Two simple options. And I froze.

So buying isn’t just taste. It’s clarity under pressure. And when clarity is the job, you start building it on purpose. Not with mood boards. With structure. With small decisions you can control, so the big ones don’t swallow you.

A suitcase that clears my head.

When I’m in Paris, everything in my suitcase has to match. Not for fashion. For speed. For changing. For being able to walk into any showroom and get to the point.
I pack like I work. Efficient. Everything mixes. Nothing precious. Shoes I can walk in. A bag that holds my hands free. This is not a vacation suitcase. This is a work suitcase. Efficiency isn’t a virtue. It’s survival. In showrooms, you try things on quickly and often. And yeah, sometimes you change in the middle of the room. I’m not interested in standing there completely naked. So I build around my fitted tank top, add layers, and keep it simple. Pragmatism over pose.

Paris doesn’t care about your principles. Paris tests them.

During buying season, the pace is faster. The pressure is louder. The temptation is constant. Sometimes a brand doesn’t fall apart because of price or fabric quality, but because the energy in the room is off. You feel it before you can explain it. And sometimes the opposite happens. The piece is simple. The room is calm. You put it on and it just sits right. No convincing. No overtalking. Just yes.

That’s where the real fight begins – between the mirror, the fabric, and gut instinct. Head versus intuition.

In Part 2 of this buying season series, I’ll take you to Paris: the hallway chatter, the too-fast pitch, the showroom that looks perfect but feels wrong. I’ll show you the red flags I catch in seconds, the “almost yes” decisions that cost the most time, money, and nerves, and the one decision I still replay on the flight home.