If “fashion” isn’t the first word you associate with Walmart, don’t blame Denise Incandela. The retailer’s EVP of Fashion has been working diligently to achieve a simple yet lofty goal: “We want Walmart to be our customer’s first choice for fashion,” she said during an NRF Big Show 2026 session last week.
Incandela and her team have been moving closer to this goal, with several notable wins and strong prospects for increasing sales to Walmart’s higher-income customers. She shared some of the key strategies moving the needle, including finding a “white space” of apparel item prices ranging from $15 to $40. However, the higher end of that price range represented something of a risk, since “60% of Walmart shoppers had been shopping at [apparel] price points of $15 or less,” said Incandela. But rather than being daunted, she saw an opportunity.
“We realized we were not supporting our customers’ closets, just the bottom of the closet,” said Incandela during the session moderated by Rachel Dalton, Head of Retailer Insights, America at Kantar. “That was a big ‘a-ha’ for us, because we have all these people (145 million weekly) in our stores because of the groceries and consumables Walmart sells, but we weren’t serving our growth customers — the more urban millennials and Gen Z.
“Walmart fashion had mostly been in the socks and underwear business,” Incandela added. “We were winning on price, but we weren’t winning on quality, aesthetic and style.”
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Adding Trendy National Brands and Upgrading Walmart’s Owned Brands
On its journey toward fashion credibility, “we overhauled, relaunched or launched 10 brands over the last five years,” said Incandela. “We had been a bazaar of items under different labels, and we moved toward creating true brands with a DNA, a reason for being and a target customer.”
In some cases, brands and customers were simply mismatched: “Our No Boundaries brand was aimed at young adults, but the average age of the customers buying it were 55+,” said Incandela. “Even so, the brand was doing really well, but we’re not in it just to ride a brand into the ground. We relaunched the brand with a new logo, new creative and an assortment targeting a Gen Z customer.”
Incandela also was willing to roll the dice with the October 2022 rebranding of Walmart’s Secret Treasures intimates line to Joyspun, a move that also added more inclusive sizing. “We knew that we had to change the brand’s name, but it had been a billion-dollar brand for us,” said Incandela. “However, we knew [the branding] wasn’t right or modern, so while the brand might have been doing well but it didn’t enable us to gain market share. You have to have a lot of courage, because it was a big risk: a new name, new assortment and new creative,” she added.
Walmart’s efforts included modernizing several of its private label brands: “We stood up a design team in New York City and launched our elevated brands, including Scoop and Free Assembly, at that $15-$40 price range — even though some of our store operators, particularly those with core customers who are more Southern, rural and low-income, said they wouldn’t be able to sell anything in that range. Now, five years later, Free Assembly is in all Walmart stores, and Scoop is in half of them, so we’re able to offer dresses for all occasions, and we’re leaning into fashion-forward footwear.”
Helping Stores Better Showcase Fashions
Walmart has taken an omnichannel approach to its fashion overhaul. Many in-store displays, including for the Free Assembly brand, carry QR codes that allow customers to shop the full collections online.
“We’re relentlessly focused on ensuring the online assortment is inspiring discovery,” said Incandela. “We’re also launching a premium shop for fashion brands later this month, and adding virtual try-on functionality that allows customers to see themselves in a video. It makes you feel like you’re part of the brand.”
However, some moves were more basic: “We pulled 10% of our denim inventory off of store racks to open up these spaces and make the product the hero,” said Incandela. The store selling environment is critical: “We’re working to create a better assortment, but if it doesn’t stand tall in the store, it falls flat,” she noted.
Incandela also has been leveraging social media to publicize its partnerships, such as its longstanding collaboration with designer Brandon Maxwell and limited-time offers with celebrities such as Megan Thee Stallion. She also credits the role of influencers in changing consumer perceptions of Walmart fashion: “The ability to have thousands of microinfluencers tell your message is extraordinary.”
The trend signs for Walmart’s fashion cred are positive: “We’re feeling good about the buzz in the industry, as are our suppliers and brand partners,” said Incandela. “We’re assertively taking market share, and also the share of customers with household incomes of $100,000 or more has been increasing dramatically, because they’re looking at Walmart for fashion for the first time., And we’re just scratching the surface.”
