Pacsun CEO on the brand’s Gen Z reinvention

US retail brand Pacsun has come a long way since the 1980s, when it was first established as a surf shop.

Since then, the retailer, rooted in a certain kind of California cool, has evolved from a surf-inspired boutique operation into a national chain, landed buzzy partnerships with Kendall and Kylie Jenner, weathered a 2016 bankruptcy, and staged a comeback just two years later.

CEO Brieane Olson chronicles that transformation in her new book, Co-Created: The Cultural Strategy that Redefined Pacsun, which explores how brands can reinvent themselves without losing the identity that made them resonate in the first place.

In a recent conversation with Retail Brew, Olson discussed Pacsun’s reinvention strategy, why heritage can still be an advantage, and what younger consumers want from legacy brands today.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What were the key strategies you employed to reinvent the brand and help it stay relevant for the audience today?

There’s a chapter [in the book] on the “Jenner effect” and what it meant to sign Kylie and Kendall Jenner at 12 and 15 years old, and we had a decade-long partnership with them, and we have a decade-long partnership with Jerry Lorenzo and Brandy Melville. Bringing these new brands and new energy into the mix were very strategic, but also leading with purpose required us to do a lot of internal organizational changes as well, and some of the things that had kind of plagued the company, in addition to over-expansion of malls and an outdated fleet, which we needed to address, also included some internal shifts and leadership changes that we needed to make. We really needed to no longer work in silos. We had an organization that wasn’t necessarily culturally in tune.

Are legacy brands at a disadvantage compared to more digitally native brands when it comes to relevance, or can heritage become an asset?

Having a legacy and a history can be one of the most powerful stories that you can tell if you continue to reinvent yourself. Ralph Lauren is a tremendous example of a brand that has continued to maintain relevancy, and one could argue is even more relevant today than ever before. You can also think about nostalgia as an entry point, not a strategy for the brand, and so Pacsun’s California heritage today still matters, but the company had to evolve beyond a very narrow surface gate identity to reflect how young customers express themselves today.

Authenticity is important to younger shoppers, but how do you make sure it isn’t performative while staying true to who you are at your core?

For younger consumers, understanding your brand values is really important, and what the brand inherently needs to stand for, which is why establishing a very clear purpose for our organization was key. When you talk about Gen Z and authenticity, having a history is also a really interesting piece to lean on. Pacsun having this rich history in California that also now has global scale is a very nice starting point, and something that we can reference.

What are you doing to involve younger shoppers?

It’s important that we don’t just talk about giving youth a seat at the table and putting the customer at the center of your decision-making, but actually doing structurally, operationally different things internally to do so.

Pacsun established a youth advisory council, which is essentially a board of 14 individuals, age 12–26, who actually advise us like a board of advisory, the leadership team, not on product decisions, but on strategic decisions, on technology choices, on our new app, Pacsun Community Hub, that we launched. They’re absolutely integrated into our processes, our strategies, and they have a voice at the table.

Price is also a huge concern for consumers today. How are you balancing that with staying culturally relevant?

We talk about being very value-conscious and creating products that really play an instrumental role in their life, whether that’s the Metropolitan Museum of Art T-shirt, or a piece of denim from the Selena Gomez Rare Denim line that gives back to mental health youth advocacy groups. We’re trying to build product that’s not just generic, and then, we’re also—to be quite frank—being very price-conscious in terms of really being intentional about not passing along all of the pricing pressures that all industries are feeling right now, whether that’s through tariffs or the economic environment, and being thoughtful about what they can afford and really building product that’s unique and special to them, and something that can also last for a long time.