Designingafocusedmobileexperienceforoneoftheworld'slargestfashioncompanies.
Bestseller is a fashion company founded in 1975, home to more than 20 brands — including JACK & JONES, ONLY, VERO MODA, and NAME IT — sold across 70 countries through 3,000+ retail stores. To bring its brands closer to customers, Bestseller built a new product team in Portugal with a single mission: design and grow its mobile app. I joined as the first hire and lead designer in Lisbon.
Understanding the full picture.
Bestseller is one of the largest fashion companies in the world. With 20+ brands, 3,000 retail stores across 32 countries, and products sold in 70 countries, it reaches a massive, diverse audience spanning every age, gender, and occasion.
Despite this scale, the mobile app accounted for only a small fraction of online sales. Bestseller decided to create a dedicated product team in Portugal, responsible for reimagining the mobile shopping experience and turning the app into a primary sales and loyalty channel.
I joined as the first designer and first hire in Lisbon — helping build the team, define the product direction, and shape the app from the ground up.
A single mobile experience had to hold a portfolio of 16+ fashion brands — for every age, gender, and occasion.
How do you turn a 20-brand fashion empire into one focused, loyal-by-default mobile experience?
15M users already flowing through digital channels
20+ distinct brands for all ages, genders, and styles in one app
mobile drove just 7% of online sales despite high traffic
building product, process, and culture from scratch in Lisbon
As the first hire and lead designer in Portugal, I helped build the team in Lisbon and owned the design of the mobile app end-to-end — from research and information architecture to the final product experience.
From understanding to execution.
Understanding the business
Before designing a single screen, I worked to understand the commercial reality — what the business needed, what the platform could support, and where the real constraints were.
- Business and technical requirements
- Platform limitations and dependencies
- Stakeholder alignment across 20+ brands
Understanding the audience
The data told a clear story. A predominantly female audience, concentrated in the 25–34 age group, shopping very differently across app, desktop, and mobile web.
- 91% female audience, core 25–34 age group
- Behaviour across app, desktop, and mobile
- Competitive analysis of fashion retail apps
Defining the product
With business and audience understood, I shaped the product direction — prioritising features and designing an information architecture that could hold 20+ brands without overwhelming the shopper.
- App roadmap and feature prioritisation
- Information architecture for a multi-brand catalogue
- Loyalty and growth foundations
- Browse
- Search
- Categories
- Photos
- Select size
- Add to bag
- Items
- Promo code
- Subtotal
- Address
- Delivery
- Payment
- Summary
- Track order
Going deeper.
Building a Design Team From Scratch
Joining as the first hire in Portugal meant the job was never only about the app. In the early days, product design and team-building were the same work.
I helped establish how the Lisbon team operated — the design process, the rituals, the collaboration with engineering and the brands. The culture and process we built shaped the product as much as any interface decision.
Setting strong foundations early made it possible for the team to scale and keep shipping long after those first months.
Designing for a Multi-Brand Audience
Bestseller's brands span everything from JACK & JONES menswear to NAME IT kidswear and VERO MODA womenswear. The hardest design problem was creating one coherent experience that served all of them.
The data anchored every decision. With a predominantly female audience concentrated in the 25–34 range, the experience needed to feel personal and focused — not like a generic catalogue of twenty separate stores.
The challenge was balancing a unified, easy-to-navigate app with enough room for each brand's identity to come through — so shoppers always knew where they were and what they were buying.
Designing at scale.
These numbers framed the work — the scale of the platform, the breadth of the portfolio, and the ambition the app was designed around. I led design for the product and helped establish Bestseller's new team in Lisbon.
Great product work starts long before the first screen — with the business, the audience, and a clear, prioritised roadmap.
Designing at scale means designing for everyone — and no one in particular.
The hardest part was creating one experience that served 20+ brands and every type of shopper.
Being the first hire taught me that product design and team-building are the same job early on.
Culture and process shape the product as much as pixels do.
Data framed every decision.
Understanding who actually shopped — and how — mattered far more than personal taste.
Styku
3D Body Scanning Platform