Boca’s Best Kept Secret

For a brand whose customers prefer to keep Boston Proper to themselves in order to be the best dressed at any occasion, the company prides itself on knowing everything about their ideal consumer profile, who they call “Lucy.”

In this episode of Inside Retail, Grace sits down with President & CEO Sheryl Clark to discuss how important Lucy is to the brand’s decision making process and how it’s helped propel the company to $100M in revenue.

Sheryl Clark’s trajectory in retail reads like a fashion fairy tale. Growing up in Upstate New York with dreams of a career on Seventh Avenue, she got into the very competitive Bloomingdales’ training program, which led to a move to San Francisco with another iconic brand, The Gap.

Sixteen years, and a lot of experience later, she was ready to take on the challenge of leading a company. What she didn’t know when a recruiter called about a brand called Boston Proper was that it wasn’t based in Boston and was a great fit for her despite Sheryl not considering herself proper.

The Lucy Show

Creating a strong customer profile is an important strategy for every aspect of a forward thinking retailer. How can you sell to someone if you don’t know who they are?

For Boston Proper that customer is Lucy. A women who Boston Proper wants to dress for “all occasions in life.”

Sheryl’s time at The Gap informed a culture built on the idea that the consumer isn’t going to tell you what they want – you need to lead them.

Luckily for Boston Proper, that leader is Sheryl.

Notable Quotable

“We use three things, religiously. We use data, we use customer insights and we use industry trends…those things together feed the product team and the creative team to make sure they’re executing and evolving what’s happening in Lucy’s life.”

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