Bloomingdale’s men’s fashion director adds women’s fashion to its role
What: Bloomingdale's consolidates its fashion leadership by expanding David Thielebeule's role to oversee both men's and women's ready-to-wear, streamlining its fashion director structure to three key positions.
Why it is important: This strategic consolidation reflects a broader retail trend toward integrated merchandising leadership, optimising decision-making while strengthening the connection between product curation and customer engagement.
Bloomingdale's has expanded David Thielebeule's role to encompass both men's and women's ready-to-wear fashion direction, marking a significant evolution in its organisational structure. This appointment, which sees Thielebeule taking over the women's rtw responsibilities from Janelle Lloyd, is part of a broader strategy to streamline the fashion director roles to three key leaders. The restructuring aims to strengthen the connection between merchandise storytelling, brand discovery, and customer engagement across all touch points. Alongside Thielebeule, Marissa Galante Frank continues as accessories and beauty fashion director, while Kelley Carter maintains her position as home fashion director. The company has also created a new beauty editorial and events specialist role to enhance brand narratives in the beauty space. This reorganisation aligns with Bloomingdale's integrated marketing team strategy and its larger Dream Big initiative, which focuses on reimagining growth through innovation, creativity, and experiential retail.
IADS Notes: Bloomingdale's appointment of David Thielebeule as men's and women's fashion director in June 2025 aligns with the retailer's broader transformation strategy. This move builds upon several successful initiatives, including the immersive "From Italy, With Love" campaign in August 2024, which demonstrated the company's ability to create compelling retail experiences through curated merchandise and brand storytelling. The streamlining of fashion director roles complements December 2024's digital innovation efforts, when Bloomingdale's partnered with Lucky platform to enhance its omnichannel capabilities. Under CEO Olivier Bron's leadership, this focus on strategic merchandising and enhanced customer experience has yielded positive results, as evidenced by the strong 3.8% comparable sales growth in Q1 2025. Thielebeule's expanded role, with its emphasis on connecting merchandise storytelling and brand discovery, represents another step in Bloomingdale's evolution toward a more integrated and customer-centric retail model.
