Richard Cox, Pacsun | Modern Retail Vanguard 2024
This is part of the Modern Retail Vanguard, a series highlighting the behind-the-scenes talent powering the world’s top retail brands. More from the series →
Pacsun has been around since 1980, but after filing for bankruptcy in 2016, the brand has recently reentered the cultural conversation.
Being a youth-focused West Coast mall brand, Pacsun has found innovative ways to stand out. It partnered with the Met in New York on clothing inspired by the museum’s collection; The brand was also an early partner with Formula 1 in 2022, selling products at the Austin, Texas, races as the sport reached widespread popularity in the U.S. Pacsun entered men’s active wear this year, working with four prominent college athletes as the faces of the campaign.
Richard Cox has been a key dealmaker behind many of the brand’s biggest partnerships across four categories: fashion, music, art and sport. Cox has served various executive roles in men’s merchandising since 2014. Pacsun promoted him to chief merchandising officer in August, adding its women’s business to his responsibilities.
Aside from a brief stint at Foot Locker, Cox has been with Pacsun since 2007, after the company recruited him through recruiting efforts on his college campus. He found himself interested in merchandising, wanting a creative career also grounded in numbers.
Cox’s work has led to new clothing lines centered around the outside brands and philanthropic efforts as part of the partnerships. For example, a portion of sales from a partnership with Selena Gomez’s Rare Impact Fund this year supported mental health resources. Pacsun’s partners have ranged from musicians like A$AP Rocky, Paris Hilton and Metro Boomin to teams like Los Angeles FC, the Rams and Angel City FC and even the Metropolitan Museum of Art – all aimed to be culturally relevant and inspiring to young people.
“We want to build some emotion around our brand,” Cox says. “We think some of that emotion is what we do with our own brand and our own product, but some of that emotion comes through the partnerships that we develop that help surprise people.”
Cox’s responsibilities also include leading the brand’s merchandising, buying and design teams, working with designers on new products or meeting with the buying team to put together an assortment based on internal design or external brands. “And that’s when I’m not crunching numbers with our planning team to make sure we can afford it all at the same time.”
Being pulled in so many directions, it can be hard to know what to focus on, Cox says. With success in doing these partnerships for around a decade, he’s also finding himself having to say no, or not right now, on some things.
“I think one of the challenges is how do you continue to curate and keep that special nature and do things that are meaningful, and not do too many,” Cox says.