Dr. Martens hires global product leads from Marc Jacobs and Adidas

Dr. Martens has hired Isadora Versiani as global product design director and Nadia Svensson as global merchandising and product director. Versiani joins from Marc Jacobs, the American fashion house founded by its namesake designer in 1984. Svensson was most recently at Adidas. Both start in November.

Both roles are newly created, and Dr. Martens has called the appointments a significant investment in what it terms world-class merchandising and design talent as it enters its next phase of growth. Versiani and Svensson will report to chief brand officer Carla Murphy and join the company's leadership team.

Dr. Martens said the goal is to strengthen the connection between consumer, merchandising and design as it moves further from a channel-led business toward a consumer-first model. We covered a similar rebuild attempt at the brand Versiani is leaving in our report on G-III's Donna Karan playbook for Marc Jacobs, where new leadership was likewise brought in to reshape product direction.

Who the new hires are

Versiani brings more than 17 years in global footwear design and product innovation, having held senior global product roles at Marc Jacobs and at Tory Burch.

At Tory Burch she helped scale the footwear business, contributing to what the brand has described as multimillion-dollar sales growth. She has also designed footwear collections for Rihanna and Serena Williams, and worked on runway collections and collaborations with Converse and the artist David Shrigley.

Svensson spent time as senior product director at Adidas in Shanghai, leading outdoor and sportswear category growth across Greater China and Asia-Pacific. Before Adidas she led global product management at the New Zealand outdoor footwear brand Kathmandu across Australasia, and was part of Zalando's early growth phase in Europe.

What Murphy said about the appointments

Murphy called the pair's combination of creative vision, product expertise and international market experience rare, noting they have built their careers at some of the world's most influential footwear, fashion and performance brands. She said they will help Dr. Martens create products that feel unmistakably Dr. Martens while becoming more relevant and desirable to more consumers in more markets.

Murphy added that bringing product design back to the centre of the brand, with a sharper understanding of what consumers want and where the company shows up for them, is critical as it pushes further into its consumer-first model. She herself arrived at Dr. Martens in July 2025, and these are the most senior product appointments made under her since.

What the company said about trading

Dr. Martens described U.S. wholesale performance as particularly encouraging in July, in what remains the boot brand's largest market. Its largest Asian markets, Japan and South Korea, are both performing well, it said, while European markets are in line with expectations despite what the company called a challenging consumer backdrop.

The company has said it is focused on becoming the world's most-desired premium footwear brand and is on track with its strategic objectives for fiscal year 2027. The new hires arrive as part of that push, layering fresh design and merchandising leadership onto a market performance the company itself has flagged as mixed by region.

Other luxury and performance brands have made similar moves to bring in outside product and commercial talent this year, including Nike's hire of a Walmart veteran as commercial chief, a role the sportswear giant had previously cut before reviving it.

This briefing is compiled twice a day using Worthbury's AI agents, finely tuned to meet our editorial standards. While we test and review their work, mistakes can sometimes happen. See exactly how it works.