Kristen Cole is a New York-based brand consultant and strategic advisor to luxury brands, fashion publications and tech startups entering the fashion space. Before consulting and board advisement, she worked as a chief creative officer, president, founder, fashion director and creative director in the luxury retail space. Over the course of two decades, she's built her foundational expertise working with, and editing assortments from hundreds of luxury brands and emerging designers as a fashion director/ buyer (for Tenoversix, ByGeorge, Forty Five Ten) and before that as a magazine stylist. She's operated multi-label e-commerce platforms and specialty stores around the country from New York to LA, as well as Miami, Dallas, Austin, Napa and Aspen. She's attended global fashion weeks for many years, working with Gucci, Prada, Celine, Dries Van Noten, Bottega Veneta, The Row, Thom Browne, Gabriela Hearst, Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Jil Sander, Maison Margiela, Peter Do, Christopher John Rogers, Molly Goddard, Collina Strada, Area, Vetements, Y/Project, Eckhaus Latta, among other fashion, beauty, and design brands. She's been profiled by Vogue, Vogue Business, Forbes, Business of Fashion, Cultured, Artsy, ArtNet, New York-the Cut and The New York Times, and hosts podcast, Dry Clean Only. Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Adele, Erykah Badu, Anne Hathaway and Kim Gordon are among past clients. She's studied at Parsons School of Design, Columbia University, and holds two degrees from New York University. Vogue Business has included her trend analysis in “What the world’s most influential buyers are buying”, and she's given talks to CFDA members on the current state of American retail and has contributed to Industry Insights.Cole's experience is positioned at the intersection of emerging fashion, luxury fashion, design, sustainability, and contemporary art, and steers strategies for both in-person experiential retail as well as omni-channel brand marketing and commerce. Through Abstraction No. 1 she offers her clients: s/t or project-based contracts for high-level brand development strategy, go-to-market concept creation, fashion direction, creative direction, writing, positioning, store design, merchandising analysis, and product curation.