Linda Fargo, senior vice president and women’s fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman, has looked back on a career that began with an art school portfolio and a wrong turn on the subway. Speaking to Vogue Business, she said she never set out to work in fashion. A Wisconsin native with a passion for found-object assemblage, she moved to New York dreaming of becoming a fine artist.
From Display Assistant to Window Director
Her first job was in Macy’s display department. She became production manager for the window director and, by 1984, took over the top role herself. Macy’s carried designers such as Matsuda, Kansai Yamamoto, Claude Montana and Armani, which she described as a “masterclass” in designer fashion. Windows changed weekly, and she estimates she has designed thousands over her lifetime. One smoke-machine experiment for Richard Tyler’s clothes famously trapped her team inside the display.
After roles at I. Magnin in San Francisco and The Gap, she realised she preferred smaller, more personal retail to large-scale operations. She cold-called Bergdorf Goodman, mailed a portfolio and was hired as visual director by president Dawn Mello in 1996.
Building a Curated Vision at Bergdorf
In 2006, then-president Jim Gold offered her the women’s fashion office. She says she has since attended roughly 5,000 fashion shows and now builds deeper partnerships with designers. A decade ago, she launched Linda’s, a shop-in-shop that stocks only one of each item, with no size runs.
Fargo said the industry must keep designers’ creativity at its heart, but also needs to take more risks. With competition rising and more places to shop, she believes innovation is essential.