CdM Fashion Careers: Larkin Brown Lead Stylist and Researcher at Pinterest

I had the chance to speak with Larkin Brown about her job working in the Pin Factory headquarters at San Francisco recently. Read the interview below to find out about her advice for bloggers and brands who love Pinterest as well as the exciting new things the company has planned for the future! 

What is your job title and what does a typical day in the life look like?

Researcher and Stylist.

A Pinterest perfect moment. Here Larkin styles a shoot to be featured on the platforms style section. Photo courtesy Larkin Brown/Pinterest.

Some days are filled with brainstorming with designers. Other days I might be working with a quantitative researcher digging through the data but my favorite days are when we’re out doing field research with pinners (people who pin) because it’s so inspiring to see people bringing pins to life.

As a stylist sometimes and, this doesn’t happen very often but, when we do our own brand photo shoots I’ll style those and a lot of what I do is that a lot of the insights and data that I find as a researcher and especially on trends I will take that and share it with the media.

Do you have any advice for someone hoping to work in this field?

What has helped me the most is understanding people. If you think about the way people use Pinterest, there are so many ideas and possibilities, we want you to find the one that’s right for you. So much of that is about style, but it’s also about people. My advice is to take classes that are about understanding people so that could be classes in communication, psychology, or sociology. I’ve found that for me that kind of anchoring in my schooling has helped so much in how I’m translating that information about people into style or into the products we’re developing for them.

Fashion is one of the most popular topics on Pinterest, do you have any advice for fashion brands who want to get on the platform?

The good news is that brands are really welcome on Pinterest. Actually 75% of our content on Pinterest is from businesses. There are all these natural pivots that happen so that kind of business or branded content is not only welcome is part of what makes Pinterest so good. Think about Pinterest as you’re allowing someone to peek into your mind, so getting to see the inspiration of the brand or person you admire is really fun for people and pretty unique for Pinterest. It’s allowing people to see the inspiration or thought that went into a collection that makes people feel more connected to that line. Also think about your customer or the audience that you want to reach…what else are they interested in…Home, beauty, food, travel? Which one of those areas do you want to hold equity in as a brand? Then build out boards around that and you don’t have to worry about having to create all this content from scratch. Curating is a big part of Pinterest and it’s really welcome.

How has the “tried it” button affected the Pinterest experience for users and brands so far?

We find that it’s really helpful for them when they’re trying to evaluate if an idea is right for them because they’re getting a sense of how it turned out and also getting tips from other people who’ve tried it before. We also find that people like feeling like they’re helping the community and Pinterest really isn’t a social network. People aren’t using “tries” to get likes; people really use Pinterest for themselves to discover and do the things that they love. It’s that “me” time.

What do you see for the future of fashion focused content on Pinterest and specifically branded content?

So, this is me personally of what I would really want to see I just want to see more body diversity in our content. I think the fashion industry is getting on board with this and I do see it changing and I’d really like to see that change and see it be visible on Pinterest as well. I’d be really excited to see Pinterest play a bigger role in this movement.

How does Pinterest work with content creators and specifically fashion focused creators on the platform?

When we say 75% of content on Pinterest comes from brands we mean businesses or brands that would also include media and independent content creators. A lot of the content that we get on Pinterest, we really rely on the pinners saving it from around the web, so we don’t proactively go out and scrape content from the web. It’s real people, real humans curating it which is part of what’s unique about Pinterest. However, we do have a team that works with the bigger partners and brands and also bloggers, influencers, and independent content creators. We invite them to trainings and meet with them one on one. Also we want their input on features because they’re such a part of the Pinterest ecosystem, we want to get their input too.

I think in the future we see an opportunity to have Pinterest hosted events where we could invite a lot of these content creators more into what we call the pin factory here at headquarters and spend even more time with them. We are excited to do more events.

What do you see for video pins as it relates to the fashion and beauty industries?

I’m most excited about integrating more beauty tutorials into Pinterest and I really I think we have so much good content at Pinterest but what is one of the things that’s special about it is… its all humanely curated.

Something I’d really like to see more of is that if you’re looking you know, at like a beautiful face shot that we could have a beauty tutorial mixed in underneath that was like, hey how to do the perfect cat eye right, if there’s a cat eye in that face and the idea of having that amongst the related items is really exciting because, then its not just about buying the products its not just about finding other inspiration there can be a how to element which is so core to Pinterest and what people use it for.

As a search tool what does Pinterest see for advertising and e-commerce on the platform?

 What do you see for the future of fashion on shoppable Pinterest?

I think our biggest opportunity there is around building bridges to connect those moments of discovery to shopping or buying for something.

 If you already know what you want, if you already know like the shoe and the brand and what
you’re looking for, going to google or going to a department store e-commerce site is going to be 
faster and better for you and we really don’t need to replace that.

I think our big opportunity is when you don’t quite know what you want, where you might not have like the terminology to search for it in google coming to Pinterest and discovering oh, you know what, actually I want a block heel booty… where it’s like a little higher over your ankles like, maybe you don’t know that’s called but you realize, oh my gosh that’s what I want that’s what’s going to feel modern for fall for me and then being able to connect that to either buying it like clicking through to the retailer or buying it right on Pinterest or finding something similar. It’s about when you don’t quite know what you want trying to connect that to a shopping experience.

How do you think visual search can work for fashion and retail companies? How do you think it will affect the e-commerce experience? The in-store experience?

One of the big pain points that we see is just it’s difficult to gauge if somethings going to fit you or 

not and part of it is fit but there also is an element of just like is this going to look good on me

sometimes it’s about color… and in the beauty world, like a color cosmetic, you know is that lip 

color or blush going to work on me.

I’m really excited about using visual search as a way to gauge if is something is going to work for you  and I’ll say you know I think the technology isn’t quite there yet but, I’m excited about that direction. Whether it’s like color matching with foundation or imagine you’re like in a store and you’re really excited about a piece but they don’t have your size in stock and, your debating oh well do I order it and like see if the size you know up or down fits me. That’s still a pain point and I think there is something in this visual discovery technology and the visual search technology that could really help…that really hasn’t been resolved yet with online shopping. I mean the closest thing we have right now is like free shipping, you can try it at home! And it seems like there’s something more we could do there.

What Fashion Brands can Learn from Sears' Downfall

Hey guys! I know I don't normally post opinion articles on my blog but, this story has been on my mind lately. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Sears Holding Corp. has been on a downward spiral that caught the attention of the finance world in 2015, when reports suggesting that the company was no longer viable came out and really hurt the retailer’s already shaky image. However, many Wall Street analysts have written that the company’s true downfall started long before. According to an article from Business Insider published on January 8^th the retail giant has been suffering under the direction of CEO Edward Lampert. Lampert became CEO in 2013 although he had been involved with Sears for many years prior. According to the article, Lampert has been trying to turn the retailer into a data collection service that resembles tech companies like Amazon and Uber. The Sears Shop Your Way program, launched in 2009, spearheads this strategy. Lampert has been criticized for selling off the company’s assets, such as the well-liked Lands End clothing brand as well as real estate, to prop up the business. Unfortunately, the company’s financial statements from last quarter showed further losses and little hope that a turnaround is on the rise.  

What happened to the 123 year old American heavyweight? I’ll leave the numbers to Wall Street and the SEC but, I can say that Sears is a prime example of how retailers have been failing at branding. This narrative is not unique to Sears and many fashion brands have joined the race to vie for the notoriously flighty attention span of young millennial and gen Z consumers. However, some companies are all too eager to give up their brand in order to “evolve” and appeal to the younger generation. This often results in one of two unhelpful outcomes. Either, a very inauthentic marketing campaign directed at young people that is usually received by the audience as arrogant or out of touch or, an attempt to remake the brand’s image that just ends up confusing core customers and new comers alike.

 Lampert has been quoted as comparing his vison for Sears to companies like Apple and Microsoft which are well known for their cult following of loyal millennial customers. He is not the only one who has noticed this phenomenon though and many brands believe that the success of companies like Apple lies with their “cool” and “hipster” image as well as their aggressive branding strategy. For example, their strategies include putting the simple Apple logo on everything and diligently ensuring every piece of the company, from retail stores to commercials, projects the easily recognizable sleek aesthetic of the Apple brand. While these tactics are definitely factors in these companies’ success what many have failed to recognize is that the companies true appeal for young people lies with their inspiring story of success and the perseverance their young founders exhibited through many rejections. Gen Zers in particular are a generation of entrepreneurs and respect the entrepreneurial spirit of some of the more recent and well known founders and their companies. Ask almost anyone under 35 how Apple was started and you will most likely get an answer that includes “by Steve Jobs in a garage”

How many people under 35 know who founded Sears? J.C. Penny? Macy's? Nordstrom?

Millennials, especially young millennials and gen Zers who grew up during the recession, are often portrayed as being a generation of cynics who don’t believe in the American dream. Whether it was intentional or not many companies have responded by burying their brand’s roots in a jumble of other “ironic” advertising and PR campaigns that are supposedly more trendy. Others, especially newer brands, have gone the opposite direction overbranding their company with “storytelling” to the point of inauthenticity.

Some companies’ appeal is simply due to their “cool” factor and in that case the founding of the brand isn’t really that important to their audience. But, for a company like Sears, with a rich history of innovation and company culture, leaving that behind and trying to be the next “it brand” can lead to disastrous consequences. The line between remaining relevant and exciting and, retaining the core brand story is thin and blurry however it shouldn’t go unnoticed. While it would be easy to blame Sears entire demise on Lampert, I believe their troubles started long before he was involved. Revenues were falling as early as 2001 and the company was already facing a rapidly shrinking customer base by the time Lampert came onto the scene. The company, like so many others, relied on word of mouth among their older customers for their brand's reputation and failed to carve out a clear cut purpose in the minds of new customers making them increasingly irrelevant. Leaving customers to wonder things like: "What does Sears do?" won't lead to the success of any new initiatives the company may have on the rise. Making sure that a company’s purpose and direction is clear to consumers before attempting any experimental marketing or business strategies is very important for new and existing brands alike.