Kenneth Cole appoints EVP, women’s creative director and product strategy

American fashion house Kenneth Cole has appointed Emily Cole as its new executive vice president, women’s creative director and product strategy, expanding her role as the brand prepares to “revitalise and broaden the women’s collection”.

Cole, who is currently responsible for overseeing design direction and merchandising organisation and will continue leading this area, has been further tasked with fuelling the growth of the company’s women’s division and lead product development across all current womenswear categories.

As such, she will collaborate with Kenneth Cole’s strategic partnership team to explore new categories while continuing to report to president, Jed Berger.

Cole, who is the daughter of the brand’s eponymous founder and chairman, Kenneth Cole, joined Kenneth Cole Productions in 2022, and has since held several senior management positions, including chief strategy and product officer.

In a release, she said she was thrilled to take on the expanded role for the heritage brand and to help to “steer it into the future”. She continued: “I have grown up in and around the business, watching my dad tirelessly build it into an iconic example of how a brand can have purpose, standing up for important issues while also being relevant and cool.

“I feel as though I have been informally working with and learning from my dad my entire life, and I am incredibly proud and excited to help continue his legacy of activism and fashion– or as he would say, to follow in his footsteps by insisting that what we stand for is more important than what we stand in.”