Lingerie chain Wild Orchid brought high-fashion underwear to Russia. How have they been so successful?

Julia Piterskaya says she is a self-made woman, like many Russian top managers. Starting her career as a shop assistant and working her way up in the lingerie chain Wild Orchid, this young vice president does not hesitate to attribute her good performance to her experience.
Since she started in company management in 1996, her policy has consisted in heavily investing in advertising and good service in order to create a new concept of lingerie in a country without a tradition in this area. "We introduced lingerie culture in this country," she reminds us.
She recently became a mother, which she says gives her more strength to maintain her good professional skills, Piterskaya told The Leader about her experiences as a self-made professional.

Wild Orchid has become the leading lingerie chain in the country, in part due to your role in the company. Has the fact that you don’t have higher education ever posed any obstacles to successful work?

In fact, it was never a problem. On the contrary, my previous experience as a saleswoman made me feel very self-confident when I started at the company as a saleswoman. I liked sales and that I knew more than other Wild Orchid’s attendants. At the moment I was hired, in 1996, I immediately felt that I had found a path to do a good job at the company and, consequently, grow in my career. My good performance is solely a result of my own experience. Being a shop attendant never made me underestimate my own value, despite the fact that it is not considered a solid and interesting position. Actually, this experience became the basis of my career. After a year and a half, I became the manager of our branch on Leninsky Avenue, one of our three shops at the time, when less than 100 people worked for the company.
Besides that, of course, I must add that we were so successful in large part because we put part of our souls into this business, dedicating our time and emotions to do a good job.

Why did you choose to work instead of keeping up your studies?

Our family was not rich, and times were very difficult immediately after the fall of Soviet Union. At that time, unemployment was very high and we did anything we had to earn a living, even things that weren’t related to our specialties. I am a technician by training; I went to the Industry Technology Institute, from which I graduated in 1990. One year later I started to work as a sales consultant for customers in a shop called Fashion House on Arbat, a clothing store that was also a fashion house. That first experience was decisive; I realized that I wanted to keep working in sales and that this job suited my personality.

How can experience as a saleswoman make a top manager in the lingerie market?

I worked for almost 10 years as a saleswoman, and can I tell you that not a single top manager in this market can be successful without such experience. You need to know the art of relations between people, and you acquire this experience only in dealing with client, and it is equally very important, consequently, to develop your skills of how to manipulate the relations in a way convenient for both sides.
Particularly in my case, the economic and cultural situation of the country played a significant role. In 1991, when I got my first job, the fashion market was just starting in Moscow, and companies had to invest in introducing new concepts in the market and, obviously, train their personnel in accordance with those new parameters.
After the first job at the fashion house, I worked at a boutique that was making a difference in the whole retail market. It was opened by some former emigrants from the Soviet Union who had lived in Europe and United States, and the idea of a "boutique" — a shop that sells different brands and lines of clothing — was absolutely unknown in Russia. One of the owners, using her experience in the West, taught us how to communicate with clients, explaining basic concepts such treating the customer as a guest, so store can also be a pleasant and comfortable place for him.
In 1993, I started to work at a clothing store called Trade and Credit. As was characteristic of those times, they dealt with everything: cars, clothes, food and even cheese production. As a result, they went to the dogs and I had to find another job — that was when Wild Orchid hired me.

Would you then suggest that beginners who aim for higher roles in their companies try being shop attendants?

Nobody acquires experience from books. Books alone cannot make good professionals, but experience alone can help us quite a bit. I am not saying that studying isn’t important — I keep reading books about marketing, for example — but I emphasize that theory is never enough if it is not linked to practice. Beginners should dedicate part of their time to improving their skills in the retail segment of their companies and be attendants for some months. It is necessary to know the customer’s interests and communicate with him and feel the texture of the lingerie’s cloth with your own hands and know its design.

What is lacking in the management of the lingerie market in Russia?

I believe that there are no properly prepared managers for the fashion business in our country, especially when it concerns lingerie, which demands a more delicate approach than other goods.
Managers are not as professional as this segment of the market demands. Sometimes it seems to me like they are selling watermelons in the market! This business addresses beauty and dreams.
One good point of average middle-level managers in Russia is that they can develop good performances thanks to their enthusiasm. Russians work with their souls — this is a resource that, in the West, is not frequently come across.
I believe top managers are people that have developed their professional background by themselves, like Alexander Fiodorov, our president. In 10 years, the next generation of professionals in Russia will be more oriented to a specific segment of the market and will be educated mainly for that.

How does Wild Orchid differ from the competition?

In the whole philosophy of our company and its 300 employees. It would be incorrect to say that we are producers, because we sell goods. But I must admit that we do produce something: dreams and beauty. Our services stimulate clients to become more beautiful. Besides that, the first warning to any possible employee is not to base their behavior on a customer’s looks. Attendants have to be pleasant to any customer, something that is very rare in elite shops worldwide. When choosing our staff, we see if they are pleasant and have communication skills. We have more than once had the bad experience of hiring professional but unpleasant people.
We cannot rely on people who work in an automatic way, as if they were machines. A business run like that ends up being dry and tedious, and it cannot happen in the lingerie market — there is always a certain excitement in the soul of each client at the moment of sale, and the attendant should not spoil that. At our shops, the atmosphere is pleasant, and that is fundamental, I would say.
As a result, Wild Orchid’s growth rate was 60-70 percent in the last three years, and, now, more than 300 people work for us. We are bringing this conception to the regions, where we recently opened new shops. Since last year, I have been going to Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Chelyabinsk to supervise managers and attendants and talk to them about our philosophy.

Your lingerie is rather expensive. Who are the clients who can spend $1,000 on a lingerie set or bathing suit?

Among our clients, there are not only wealthy ladies who dedicate a great part of their time and money to becoming more beautiful and fashionable, but also top businesswomen, famous sportswomen and people from the Russian jet set. These people don’t have time to purchase high-quality clothes abroad.
Also, the amount of men is very high, regularly 30 percent. We did research before last New Year’s Eve, and it showed that, during that time, 48 percent of our clients were men buying clothes for their wives or girlfriends.
What is remarkable is that the majority of our clients learned how to be fashionable thanks to our advice on how to properly wear lingerie. We instructed them how to wear it correctly, such as combining the sets and not wearing them separately, matching the colors and textures and even considering them as part of their look. This is a Western conception that didn’t exist in Russia before and was introduced to the country by us. Actually, our company’s performance is unique in the country.

You recently became a mother. Isn’t it difficult to combine such a demanding job and your maternal role?

My daughter is one year and four months old. Actually, I thought it would be much more difficult to combine work and motherhood, considering practical complications such the necessities of a small baby and keeping a good job. But, on the contrary, I realized that it gave me more strength to keep working and made my life more interesting.

Would you give a recipe for achieving success?

It is important to smile for everybody. Even if you are in serious negotiations, but smiling within yourself, your eyes show it and make a positive impression on people.