If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to build a career in fashion and ecommerce, then you’ll love my conversation with Amy Tran, the Executive Director of Online and Omni Channel at Le Labo Fragrances, a New York based niche fragrance company owned by Estee Lauder. 

Amy’s career is multi-faceted, resilient, and full of zigs and zags. She never thought she could have a career in fashion, until a special events internship at Hermès, the epitome of luxury European fashion, changed everything.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

There’s more to luxury than meets the eye.

Amy was lucky enough to land coveted internships with the be all, end all, fashion houses. It doesn’t get any more pie in the sky and exclusive than Hermès and Chanel!

As a result, the base of Amy’s resume is really shiny and those opportunities opened doors for where she went from there.

In taking these baby steps into the world of fashion, Amy left those internships with a true respect and deep appreciation for the businesses. She realized there is magic in the world of luxury products and a psychology and real emotion behind owning an expensive designer handbag. These internships gave her a peek behind the curtain.

Make peace with imposter syndrome.

Amy tapped into her curiosity around ecommerce by taking a receptionist role at Alexander Wang in 2011, at the time, one of the most notable fashion companies. While she laughs now about how terrible she was at answering phones, one of her biggest achievements was helping to launch Alexander Wang’s ecommerce presence in more than 50 countries.

For the first six years of her career, Amy battled imposter syndrome. The silver lining was that it kept her on her toes and she chose not to yield to it, even though it was annoying. In fact, she made peace with it. 

If you’ve faced imposter syndrome in your career, take a look at what makes you different and focus on that. Use it to your advantage! Amy knew she was a hard worker and the hard work she put in made it easier for her to believe that she deserved a seat at the table. 

The magic of recruiters and how to achieve longevity at a company.

So how did Amy land such an incredible role at fragrance company Le Labo? A recruiter reached out to her to see if she’d be interested in overseeing their ecommerce and digital marketing channels. Even better, at that time Amy was already a customer for Le Labo, so the role spoke to her heart. Always wanting to be a “builder” rather than a “worker”, she thought it would be a cool challenge to take on.

At the time, people rarely bought fragrances online, so there was a unique component of creating a special experience virtually. Even now, luxury brands are in a time where they are striving to create a special experience as close to the in-store experience as possible, champagne and all.

Amy has been at Le Labo now for over six years. To gain longevity at a company and move up, it’s important to stay somewhere long enough where you can progress. Quantify your contributions and keep track of your wins.

Listen to the episode now on The Career Memos Podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.