2024 has been a busy year for Anaheim-based Pacsun, with over 20 new collaborations and renewed partnerships under CEO Brieane Olson.
Olson emphasizes being intentional with the people and brands she partners with, aiming for each collaboration to be long term.
Her focus is on connecting Pacsun’s younger consumers at the “intersection” of fashion, art, sports and music. Olson’s efforts in this goal include celebrity partnerships, exclusive apparel drops with popular organizations and digital-only launches, a strategy that helped land her the role of CEO in 2023.
Now, after more than a year as chief executive, she has expanded the retailer’s reach beyond its 305 stores to museums, sports venues and racing events.
The company’s digital presence earned it a nod with trade publication WWD, which ranked Pacsun among the top 10 fashion brands on TikTok in mid-September.
Olson won the Business Journal’s Women in Business Award last year; she will be the keynote speaker at this year’s event, scheduled for Oct. 30 at the Irvine Marriott.
Pacsun Collective
Olson has also invited Pacsun shoppers to help grow the brand.
This year, Pacsun introduced a community-based initiative that invites customers to collaborate with employees in developing the company’s seasonal marketing campaigns and designing future merchandise.
“With the Pacsun Collective, we have the opportunity to truly co-create and community source the future stages of the brand,” Olson said in a statement.
The collective, counting 50 individuals so far, worked on the firm’s spring/summer 2024 new releases campaign in February and its music festival collection for this year’s concert season.
“It’s meant to be continuous and to match the evolving speed of the youth landscape,” Olson added.
In return, the apparel company has helped the participants with their own creative careers by shooting music videos and hosting performances for independent musicians.
Pacsun in June announced the company was expanding the collective by working with emerging artists to design limited-edition capsule collections, starting with Los Angeles-based Kelly Malka. This project follows the ongoing collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which inspired Olson to reach out to individual artists. She’s hoping to expand the music side of things as well.
This year’s partnerships also includes designer Reese Cooper, socialite Paris Hilton, Pinterest, the Angel City Football Club, the Los Angeles Rams, Formula One, UFC and actress Selena Gomez’s Rare Impact Fund.
Design Director
Pacsun has been working its way back to $1 billion in annual sales following a restructuring by private equity firm Golden Gate Capital, which took the company private following its financial reorganization in 2016.
Olson is the first woman to lead the 40-year-old apparel firm as CEO. During her nearly two decades with the company, she’s served in multiple roles, including senior design director, senior vice president of merchandising and branding, chief brand officer and president.
The executive was in part responsible for building out the women’s line, bringing in brands and creating partnerships to attract new customers, at a time when the retailer was transitioning from a surf and skate-focused retailer to “a premier option for both men and women,” according to Olson.
