Converse - Collaboration Strategy
Turning one-off partnerships into a cultural engine
The Brief
Converse’s strength has always come from the people who wore it, but its collaboration model at the time had become inconsistent, driven only by global teams in North America, leaving Europe without a platform to build local cultural relevance. The opportunity was to prove that regional partnerships could be both creatively and commercially powerful, and build the foundation for a sustainable collaboration function.
The Work
It began in London with Shrimps, Converse’s first female-led fashion collaboration at London Fashion Week. I managed the project end-to-end, extending it through a direct partnership with the Chinese factory to prove that a locally initiated collaboration could achieve global traction.
That success opened the door to formalising a European collaboration model, later named Incubate, which I built and led from Amsterdam. We structured Incubate around three principles: credibility, creativity, and longevity.
Across partnerships with JW Anderson, Carhartt WIP, Slam Jam, Made Me and many more, each collaboration stretched the brand into new cultural spaces, from luxury craft to street heritage and subcultural style.
In parallel, I established a pinnacle retail layer with the likes of Selfridges, Galeries Lafayette, and Dover Street Market, ensuring every collaboration lived in the right context and reached the right audience.
The Outcome
The framework turned collaboration into a repeatable, scalable model — one that balanced creative freedom with brand discipline, cementing Converse’s credibility in European fashion and streetwear.
More importantly, it transformed collaboration from a side project into a core brand channel for EMEA, proof that when partnerships are built on authenticity, they build lasting equity.