Brieane Olson, CEO of PacSun, Stays Laser Focused on Young Consumers

Brieane Olson may never have worked the cash register at a PacSun store, but she’s done just about everything else in her nearly two-decade career at the Los Angeles-based retailer.

Olson actually got her feet wet in retail as a teenager working for Banana Republic, and over the years had held posts at J.Crew, Marzotto and Abercrombie & Fitch before joining PacSun as senior design director of women’s in 2007. She worked her way up the ranks until reaching the top spot two years ago.

As chief executive officer, Olson has worked to create what she calls a “purpose-driven” company that is in lock step with its target of Gen Z and Gen Alpha customers. From collaborations with Formula 1 and the Metropolitan Museum of Art to relationships with Selena Gomez, A$AP Rocky and Fear of God’s Jerry Lorenzo, PacSun has managed to prosper while many of its teen-oriented competitors have struggled or disappeared.

Here, Olson, who is also a mother of two, talks about her career trajectory, how PacSun’s customers engage with the company as co-creators and what’s next for the 300-plus unit chain.

WWD: How long have you been CEO of PacSun?

Brieane Olson: I’ve been CEO for the last two years, and I’ve been with the organization in total 18 years. I was co-CEO, brand president, chief brand officer, chief merchandising officer, all the way down the range. So I have had a lot of evolution in my career trajectory here.

WWD: Did you work a cash register too at one point?

B.O.: No. But early on, at age 15, I worked in Banana Republic, so I started in stores. I spend a lot of time in our stores today, probably as a big part of understanding how important that final touch point with the consumer is.

WWD: Did you work anywhere else before PacSun?

B.O.: I worked at Abercrombie right before PacSun. And prior to that, I worked and lived in Italy for Marzotto Group, for the Valentino brand and Gianfranco Ferre. After a few years there, I partnered with a woman named Holly Dunlap, and we started a company called Hollywood, and then I went to Kellwood a few years later.

WWD: How many stores do you have at PacSun and are they mainly in malls?

B.O.: We have over 300 stores, and the majority of our locations are mall-based. We’ve been very intentional about focusing on high-performing centers that drive strong traffic, especially from Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Just last month we opened Westfield Century City. We’re opening about 10 doors this year and 25 next year, and we have quite a few flagship, street-level stores, such as the one in SoHo in New York and in downtown L.A., which are really designed to be experiential hubs for the brand. Both formats really play a role, with malls continuing to perform exceptionally well for us and our flagships helping to drive the culture and storytelling for the brand.

WWD: How many street locations do you have and how are they different from the mall stores?

B.O.: I would say we have just under 10 flagships and they’re about twice the size. So it’s allowed us to do some really incredible activations with folks like A$AP Rocky, our creative director at the time — he did an in-store musical performance. We did an ADHD Paris Hilton-led event where she signed her records in our Broadway SoHo store. We’ve done things with Emma Chamberlain and brought in virtual reality and gaming trucks to our downtown L.A. storefront. So it’s given us an opportunity to engage in powerful ways with our consumers and our creator community.

WWD: Do the flagships perform better than the mall-based stores?

B.O.: Our SoHo store is in our top five, and also our Mall of America location is in the top five. So two very different examples where we’re seeing high traffic, consumer engagement and all-time high sales and sales per square foot. Over the last 18 months it’s been remarkable to see the return to the mall, and we have had consistent double-digit traffic and sales comps, and we’re seeing that continue today. For the Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers who live and exist in a fully digital world, there is definitely this desire to integrate physical experience into their day-to-day lives.

WWD: How much of your business is online versus brick-and-mortar?

B.O.: About 35 to 40 percent of our business is e-commerce — and growing. We also have had steady growth in social commerce channels, predominantly through platforms such as TikTok Shop, where we were an early adopter. I certainly look at social commerce as a large growth vehicle for digital sales going forward and engaging with the consumer and meeting them where they are in a way that’s different from what we’ve seen in the past. It’s a really essential touch point for both discovery and community engagement.

WWD: Does Golden Gate Capital still own the company?

B.O.: Yes. For a while they owned Eddie Bauer too but we sold that off about five years ago to SPARC Group.

WWD: Do you have any indication that they’ll sell you too?

B.O.: They have been incredible partners, and the focus has really been about creating sustainable long-term value for the brand. We’re not transaction oriented. I think the transaction will happen at the right time, but that’s not the focus. The focus is really on creating long-term longevity and growth. And they’ve been incredibly supportive of our growth initiatives.

WWD: The company used to be heavily menswear. What’s the merchandise split today?

B.O.: When I joined the brand 18 years ago, it was about 75 percent men’s. Today, we’re closer to 60-40 women’s to men’s. That’s been a predominant shift — and very intentional.

WWD: What’s the breakdown between national brands and private label?

B.O.: Roughly 50 percent of our business is PacSun branded today. If you look back just a decade ago, we didn’t have any product in our store that had the PacSun name on it. So that has been an incredibly important initiative, and now our jeans are some of the most coveted out there. That’s been a very thoughtful and strategic shift. And then 50 percent comes from national brands with exclusive drops and collaborations. This balance really allows us to stay nimble and on trend, while also leveraging iconic brand partnerships that resonate deeply with our audiences.

WWD: You’ve done some interesting collaborations over the years.

B.O.: Yes, we’re very proud of our brand partnerships, whether it be with Formula One, where we’re on year three, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is also going on our third year of partnership. We think about our business in terms of four pillars: music, sports, art and fashion. There is a fluidity within that mix, but those are the four that are represented at any given time within our brand DNA.

WWD: What products are you best known for today?

B.O.: When people think about the greatest collaboration with sports or the most exciting things happening in fashion, we’re known for those four pillars underneath that. We’re also certainly known for denim, and our growth in denim can also be seen in the halo that we’ve created on different social media and social commerce platforms. Last year, we had the phenomenon of the viral packs on TikTok for the Casey jean, followed by the Astrid jean. Denim is certainly a mainstay that you see every single season, and is an important part of the consumer and audiences’ wardrobe.

WWD: Do you have an internal design team?

B.O.: Yes, we have a team in place in-house. They’re responsible not only for the PacSun-branded product, but some of our branded collaborations and collaborative efforts with different creators and artists and musicians. So it’s really a team that’s focused on lifestyle and not just category. There are category-specific designers underneath that, but we’re very proud of the talent of the team and, quite frankly, the longevity of the leadership there.

WWD: Who is the customer?

B.O.: Our core customer is 16 to 24, Gen Z, but we’re also investing early in Gen Alpha [those born between 2010 and 2024], and we’ve done that through different initiatives, inclusive of our collaboration and partnership on Roblox, which was started in 2019. And our customer is expressive. They’re value driven, they’re digitally fluent, and our entire brand is really designed to reflect their pace, their priorities and the platforms that they enjoy cocreating on.

WWD: They’re also very fickle. How do you manage to keep up and make sure that you’re on the same wavelength?

B.O.: The most important strategy is co-creation. We cocreate alongside our consumer and our community. With the launch of our PacSun Collective, we’re very focused on active listening on social media. We build feedback loops into everything we do. We explore and test with frequency. And we really allow the customer to lean in and lead. This has been a key to us generating true authenticity with the customer. I also think that by having a very broad network of voices in our co-creation and brand storytelling. The diversity of voices also gives us a very authentic point of view, which is more unique to PacSun. And then I would say the other thing with the fickle young consumer is that the brand really shows up in the most authentic way. We look at the opportunity to engage with our customer across all of the platforms and get all of that feedback as an asset and an opportunity. And I think that’s a key point of differentiation.

WWD: How does the PacSun Collective work? Do they codesign or just give feedback?

B.O.: Over 17 years ago we started a style leader group, which brought consumers into our ecosystem, giving feedback on design, marketing and branding very early on. The majority of those people ended up working for us full time, whether social media or design and marketing. It actually became a very unique funnel for future employees, but now we have a much broader network. First, I would want to mention that our field and store associates are the best way for us to get constant consumer feedback. Second is our social channels and true social listening — having dialogue, getting back to every comment, being very intentional about what that loop looks like. And then about every other month, the teams travel across the U.S. and host real trend groups who will come in and speak to a specific area that we’re trying to look at, or even a shift that we’re proposing to make on the app or the website. So there are constant touch points, bringing in teams that we think are leading in the style space and making sure that we’re in lockstep with them as we evolve the brand across kind of all facets.

WWD: You work with Jerry Lorenzo of Fear of God. What’s his role?

B.O.: We were introduced to Jerry Lorenzo 12 years ago as part of our partnership working with Kanye [West] and Virgil Abloh and Matthew Williamson when we were bringing streetwear into our mix. We worked together to be one of the first places that he launched his Essentials line over a decade ago. So we have a long-standing relationship with Jerry. He is highly involved in building both his Fear of God brand and the Essentials brand. Essentials plays into our fashion pillar, and has been a very important part of our mix. So it’s a long-standing relationship, and we will continue to build and evolve alongside Jerry and his vision for both Essentials and Fear of God.

WWD: You’ve mentioned collaborations. How do you choose your partners?

B.O.: The first thing we look at is that there has to be a genuine interest in reaching the PacSun community and being a part of our ecosystem. Some examples were A$AP Rocky who, when we were in discussions with him, had this incredibly strong nostalgia. He tells this beautiful story of PacSun being his favorite mall-based friend, and wanting to bring affordable clothing and his vision to this whole new set of youth consumers. There has to be a real, genuine tie-back for it to be legitimate and authentic to the consumer. We look at our four pillars, and we try to bring them to life under the lens of culture.

WWD: What have been some of your most successful collaborations?

B.O.: Although it is highly recognized today as a huge pivot and important piece, I would say our team is very good at recognizing these early so almost four years ago, they started talking to the F1 teams, and we had our first drop. More than three years ago, we had shops race-side in Austin, in Miami, where we show up with more affordable price points in fashion meeting sport through a very unique lens, which is something very few of our competitors are doing. And as a second example, in Las Vegas for ComplexCon, we launched the Yohji Yamamoto Wild Side Formula One/PacSun exclusive. So we took high fashion, merged it with sport through the Formula 1 lens, exclusive to PacSun at a price point that a Yohji Yamamoto fan had never seen before. And if they weren’t a fan of Yohji Yamamoto, they were able to understand and access a new style. We always seek to do things that really bring something different to the mix.

WWD: What about your partnership with the Met?

B.O.: With the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they actually came to us because one of the areas they wanted to further explore is how art can play a more critical role in the lives of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. And how do we get these audiences to come back to museums and connect with art in different ways? I think they recognized an opportunity, which we embraced, and we have done different drops with different collections inside of their museum. We’ve done a very successful event one or two times where we brought creators in and had live musical performances inside the Met. It’s phenomenal to see the consistent response. I think it’s a very interesting opportunity for all of us to lean in and understand how the behavioral shifts and desires of Gen Z and Gen Alpha have evolved, and therefore how we need to approach collaborations and projects like this differently. So that’s been very, very successful. In music, one of the key partners is the Gov Ball coming up in New York in June. We will have a continued push as it relates to music and sport. We also try to make sure that every single sports partnership has a philanthropy backbone. So, for example, with the Los Angeles Rams, we’ve donated $5 million in clean clothing to help fight absenteeism in the inner-city Inglewood school districts.

WWD: Who you do view as your competition?

B.O.: We try not to think about specific competitors and recognize that we are competing in total for Gen Z’s attention — from luxury to streetwear to creator-led brands. The most important thing is to have an entirely unique point of view and an authentic connection with the consumer. I think the things that set us apart are a very clear purpose, cultural relevance and a strong community connection.

WWD: So what’s next for PacSun? Is it more stores, different product categories?

B.O.: We’re expanding in multiple directions, and international growth is an important pillar. We see PacSun as a California-based brand with four pillars that are incredibly coveted and a business that has tremendous global potential. Our first international store openings will be in the Middle East, in Dubai, later this year, in both [the third and fourth quarter]. We’re also looking into opening new stores in the U.S., in malls and street locations, and then really looking at deeper creator-led partnerships. And we’re building out a community hub that I can’t share too much about now, that will really be at the forefront of social commerce and authentic community connection.

WWD: Let’s talk about you. Do you have a mentor? And what have you learned from him or her?

B.O.: I have the point of view that I think you can learn from so many people. I learn from my team every day. I learn from the people that are working in the stores as our brand ambassadors on the front line of the connection with our consumer. And I learned from a lot of industry leaders. I would say a few industry leaders that have really shaped my perspective on purpose-led leadership include John Mackey from Whole Foods. I attended a conscious capitalism summit a couple years back, and [was impressed with] some of the things that both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have done to really be focused on community engagement and give back. I’ve been very formative in shaping my approach to how I wanted to shift PacSun under my leadership the last two years as CEO. And a lot of our initiatives have come out of some of those discussions with Doug Raush from Trader Joe’s and John Mackey from Whole Foods. But I really go back to three principles that were instilled in me from an early age. Both my mother and father were public school teachers, and my father taught me my three guiding principles: truth, help someone and trust your instinct. Those have really been a guiding light for me.

WWD: How do you define your management style?

B.O.: I would say purpose-led. I like to empower my team. Most of the leaders who work beside me have been a part of our team for 15 years plus. And I make space for risk taking. I believe in truth, collaboration and consistency. And the question I always challenge myself with is: If PacSun were to disappear tomorrow, where would the customer go? And would they care? Brand love is so incredibly important. It’s easy to talk about and very difficult to create. And I think that building that strong emotional connection with the consumer, brand affinity and the true value and power of co-creation are incredibly important to our brand longevity and delivering on our brand purpose.

WWD:  What do you like to do for fun when you’re not working?

B.O.: I have two kids, ages 10 and 12, and I love spending time with them. That is my greatest joy, and those are the moments that keep me grounded. And I’m a big believer in getting outside. It’s where I clear my head and reconnect. Some of my favorite memories growing up are visiting our national parks in the U.S., and I love passing that along to my children alongside their grandparents. A nature reset fuels both my creativity and my leadership.