Denise Incandela on Transforming Walmart Fashion with AI and Private Brands | eTail West 2026

Hello, welcome to beautiful Palm Springs.

This is Anne Mazinga.

We're here, it's Omnitalk Retail and we are live today from Etail with one of my favorite guests who I get to go on stage with in a little while.

We have Walmart's fashion EVP Denise and Candela.

Denise, thank you so much for taking time.

Thank you for having me.

Yes, yes.

Well, before we get started, I want to give a quick shout out and thank you to Net Elixir, the AI powered growth engine and behind mid sized E commerce brand growth for over 22 years.

Thank you Net Elixir for helping us bring you all of our coverage here from Etail Palm Springs.

All right, so Denise, let's get started.

If somebody's been living under a rock and they have not seen our coverage or interview, I mean, you know, that's a really good question.

Like everyone watches you, Ann.

Yeah, right.

Oh, that's not what I meant.

I meant like living under an actual rock.

Like what would happen?

Okay, so just let's give a quick introduction for those who are meeting you for the first time.

Okay.

I'm Denise and Candela.

I oversee the fashion division at Walmart.

I joined seven years ago.

Before that I spent 20 years in luxury.

And we've been on this transformation journey which has been a lot of fun and presenting extraordinary results.

So really happy to be here and talk about it, I would say.

So I've been able to watch you.

I've been so fortunate to see all the progression that you've made since you joined Walmart's fashion fashion division.

What would you say like describe Walmart fashion today?

What does it look like?

And maybe a little bit about where it started and kind of where you are now.

I'll start with where we started.

So we started in, we were the number one fashion and or apparel business in the country.

We were primarily driven by socks, underwear, denim and tees.

Big business, big item driven business.

That's what we were need those things.

Yes.

And we still need those things.

But what we decided five years ago when I took this role overseeing both stores and E Commerce was that we wanted to be more and support more of our customer's closet.

And we realized that our customers spending in higher average unit retails than we were offering, we were offering the base of her closet and that we wanted to do more.

So we've been on this journey since then to bring in national brands, modernize and build our own private brands.

They think about the white space in the market and build These elevated brands to better service our customer and have been having a lot of fun.

And at the same time, while we've been changing the assortment, we've been overhauling our shopping experience and working to change perception and broaden our customer reach with influencers and pop ups and all this fun stuff.

Yes.

All of which I've been blown away by every time I went to the New York Fashion Week pop up.

And I've been watching the.

If you haven't been watching Walmart fashion on social, you must must start following it.

One of the reasons is because of the private brands.

I want you to talk a little bit, Denise, about how private brands have really been helping catapult Walmart into this new fashion destination.

Yeah.

So our private brands, huge portfolio.

We have six brands, 1 billion and bigger, four of those brands, 2 billion and bigger.

But many of those brands hadn't been touched in 20, 30, 40 years.

And so we've been on this journey to modernize, elevate, improve the esthetic, improve the quality, launch new brands like Free assembly to address like $15 to $40 average unit retails, where frankly we think there wasn't a lot of opportunity in the market for customers to buy at those price points.

Right.

And we brought in design teams and said we're going to go from labels, which is what we largely were, to full brands with a DNA reason for being target customer and have modernized.

We've relaunched 10 brands over the last five years.

We've sunsetted brands like Secret Treasures, which was intimate brand.

You can understand why RIP Secret Treasures.

Secret Treasures does not make sense as an intimates brand in 2026.

So now we have Joy spun, which is extraordinary.

It was a $1 billion brand and we relaunched new name, new aesthetic, better quality, better everything.

And it's been a tremendous hit.

We've relaunched brands like no boundaries, $2 billion brands and modernized them and brought in design teams.

You know, no Boundaries is a young adult brand that the average customer was 55 plus, you know, so like we were just kind of missing the mark.

And now we have a young adult brand, no Boundaries, but with different logo, different aesthetic, targeted to a Gen Z using social media, which of course is how they shop.

Right.

So we've been on this journey to completely modernize and elevate all of our private brands and it's been working.

As a matter of fact, our private brands are growing so well.

Yeah.

That like originally our strategy and our still strategy is like bring the national brands in.

We want the national brands that our customers covet because we have to provide them for our customers.

But our private brands have been doing so well that it's been making us take pause.

Well, one of the things that you mentioned today that I'd love to have you share with the audience, because I think it's a very applicable use case for AI is how you are hitting on the trends.

I mean, I think that's one of the most surprising things that we're seeing is, like, the shirt that you're wearing, the blazer that I'm wearing, like, things are trend.

Right.

And from what I understand, that's because of how you and the team are kind of building the private brands and coming to find these trends and then execute on them.

Talk a little bit about how you're using AI.

No, I would say this is a superpower of Walmart.

Like, one of our strengths is that we're really investing in AI and on the design side, in the fashion space, we've been leveraging AI to understand Runway shows, social media, what's popping, and then create mood boards with what's popping all throughout the world, and then actually begin the designs based on that.

And so AI has, like, started the whole pipe, the life cycle of the product in ways that before would have taken us weeks to accumulate all that Runway, social media intelligence and start designs.

And now our design team is able to leverage that and move at a much faster pace.

Yeah.

I mean, so we can bring product to market much faster for our customers and ensure that were relevant.

Yeah, that's got to take weeks and several thousands of dollars out of the budget and timelines for producing, for sure.

And it will only become more important.

So as AI develops, like we're leaning in so hard, it will only become a more critical part of the process.

Always this combination of AI and like, human beings.

But it enables us to go at a much faster speed and be much more accurate.

Right.

And just set the designers up for success.

They're not starting from ground zero every time.

Okay, I want to ask you another question, Denise.

The Fashion Week pop up.

Yeah.

Great.

I mean, our.

Our viewers have seen that video.

If you haven't, you can head to YouTube and check that out on Amitak Retail.

But a critic might say, that's great in New York City.

How do you expand that to 4,000 plus locations throughout the country and online?

How are you working to really democratize fashion so that that experience that I got to have in New York happens when I'm in, you know, Omaha, Nebraska?

Yeah.

So I would say that the pop UPS.

The purpose is really about changing perception and getting people to see our product in markets and or spaces that they normally wouldn't see it.

And, you know, that's where you get the comments, like, is this.

You know, how much is this?

And we say it's 34, and they're like 3400.

Like, no.

$3434.

Yeah.

Right.

And so, like, that's, you know, that's really fun to bring our product into an environment where it looks like it's 20 times more, but that's not scalable.

And so what we've been doing is remodeling our stores.

And that means everything from creating brand shops to pulling out inventory to create relief and make the product the hero and incorporating mannequ and making sure that our category killers like denim, where we're the biggest denim retailer in the country, we look like the biggest denim retailer in the country.

So we have 4,000 doors.

We have 145 million people that walk through our stores and website every week, which is our strength.

145 million.

It's kind of.

And so to make sure that when they come through that they see something that enables the product to be the hero is the goal.

We've remodeled 1500 of the 4000.

We're remodeling hundreds more a year.

So that's the main intent in terms of, like, making sure that the experience evolves at the same time that we're changing the stores, we're up leveling the e commerce experience as well.

Originally created for consumables and food, not surprisingly, figuring out how to make it relevant for fashion, adding a virtual model, complete the outfit, all of that.

So there's a lot happening to make sure that as we're overhauling the and elevating the assortment, we're doing the same with the experience so that the product really sings.

Right.

And that's how people are really shopping.

I mean, it's not.

It is the basics, the essentials that they want that are now of a much higher quality in fashion.

And then plus more like this free assembly.

Like this is not a T shirt or dresses or footwear, which we knew that we were under, penetrated in and had huge opportunity.

And so now we're leaning in and going after categories that we know our customers are buying, but we weren't providing for them.

Right, Right.

We don't want to take our customer's hand and walk them to the competition.

You're here for your grocery shopping and your consumables.

Let us provide you your closet as well.

Yeah.

Yes.

Well, Denise, we'll close with what's ahead.

What's going to be happening with Walmart fashion in 2026?

I would say we are just at our beginning, so strap in.

We have between more limited time offerings, opportunities where we collaborate with.

We've got some fun ones coming up.

Okay.

We've got a pop up coming up in the spring, which we're really excited about.

So am I.

And we've got a lot more partnerships.

So the design team continues to build.

We've got another brand we're relaunching this year.

There's a lot on the agenda in the docket and we're really excited to democratize America, help America look beautiful.

That's what we all see.

Our purpose, help people live better and save money.

And we feel really proud about our small part in doing that.

Well, thanks in large part to you for shepherding this team and really being able to accomplish that.

It's been so wonderful to watch your progress the last few years.

Denise, check out Walmart Fashion if you haven't already.

We have so much more to come.

A big thank you again to Net Elixir for helping us bring you all of our coverage here at eTail.

And until the next interview, stay tuned.