Pia Stanchina
Turning dreams into reality for Glossybox UK, British Fashion Council and Google, now it’s your turn
It’s now hard to imagine luxury fashion without online retail. However, it was not that long ago that we started to see the names of founders and companies emerging that would change the fashion landscape forever.
In June 2000 Natalie Massenet launched NET-A-PORTER. Matchesfashion launched its e-commerce website in 2006 to complement to its offline presence and in June 2007 José Neves launched Farfetch. Not forgetting - naturally not on the same scale, but still significant to our story - that Black Neon swimwear launched e-commerce in June 2011, which according to our founder, was certainly not as easy or cheap as you make it happen for today.
Considering today 97% of Matchesfashion’s sales come from online shopping according to Forbes we can see the power of online. But, how did we get from no online presence to being leaders in luxury fashion e-commerce?
Well, thanks in part to people like Pia Stanchina. Having launched her own sustainable luxury fashion label focused on fusing innovative design with biodegradable materials in 2009, Pia became UK Co-founder at Glossybox UK, a Rocket Internet start-up aimed at becoming the premier direct marketing tool for high-end, niche and professional Beauty brands where she was CMO/Creative Director. This was the beginning of Pia’s career as a fashion innovator. With her sights set high, Pia contacted Google and ended up landing a role as Google Industry Manager for Fashion, Beauty and Luxury. She later helped to set up a new Digital Acceleration Fashion & Luxury Retail team to help medium-sized British brands grow. In parallel, she was Digital & Innovation Board Advisor for the British Fashion Council. During this time, Pia became known for her big picture thinking combined with a focus on actionable insight. Pia’s talent has benefited many companies and female founders including, Semaine Founders Michelle Lu and Georgina Harding and also Sharmadean Reid MBE of WAH London, Beautystack and Future Girl Corp, the latter of which Pia had significant involvement in.
After a period of time out, rebuilding herself and taking time to focus on what she wanted her own future to look like, Pia trained in transformational coaching. Now as an empowerment speaker and coach Pia inspires companies and individuals ‘to tap into all our innate creativity, brilliance and wisdom’ to enable us to ‘fully become the person you were born to be and live the life you dream of.’
With Pia’s infectious positive energy and optimism, it’s easy to see how we can turn dreams into reality with her help. We hope you enjoy listening to Pia’s story and perhaps you may find yourself reaching out to her too!
Listen to our podcast above and on
“What coaching does is it provides a safe space where you can come and bring everything that you might feel ashamed or guilty of staying to other people for sounding ungrateful or weak or vulnerable. And it also allows you to bring your inner Kanye, and be like I wanna be the best in this game, without other people being like who do you think you are. ”
Pia Stanchina, Empowerment Speaker and Coach. Image via www.piastanchina.com
“Until you take yourself seriously nobody else will.”
For our ‘Special 3 Things’ - People, Place, Possession - we find out what inspires and guides Pia.
People: “I love you. You are beautiful. You can do anything.” Lizzo’s mantra helps me shift someone’s nervous system from insecure and anxious into calm and confident through these powerful, positive words - whether I’m speaking to myself, my kid or my clients.
“I love you. You are beautiful. You can do anything.”
Place: Anywhere at all, with my headphones in if in public, listening to Tara Brach’s free guided meditations for radical compassion.
Becoming our boldest and most successful self requires the sometimes painful work of stripping away and unlearning limiting conditioning. Tara’s guidance as we find back home to our inner wisdom, creativity and courage centres around the idea that “everything that arises belongs”. Hearing those words soothes, gives patience and trust. That helps to stay on track with choosing yourself and your best life - no matter how tough it might be at that moment or how loudly the old habit you’re trying to replace may be calling.
Possession: Intelligent Change Five-Minute Gratitude Journal
It’s quick, it’s simple, it’s affordable and it really does work. Put simply and to paraphrase Tony Robbins, neurologically, we all have a highway to hell (anger, frustration, insecurity, entitlement) and a dirt road to happiness (contentment, calm, clarity). Gratitude (the focus on what’s good in life) short circuits our habitual negative thoughts. It smoothes the road to the good emotions, which means we feel them more often and more intensely. It reminds us we are safer and more secure than we may feel and allows us to show up with an expansive, inspired and creative mindset (rather than in survival mode, from where we rarely make good decisions for our future).
Portrait photography by Olivia Jank shot at Market Peckham, South London. Thanks to Henry Frith for podcast production.
14.01.2020
