Reflections on the responsibility of designing for our girls

Brands don't simply reflect culture. They help shape it. Looking back on her experience serving on the board of Justice's parent company, Kate Buggeln explores what today's brands can learn about confidence, identity, and the responsibility they carry during one of the most formative stages of a girl's life.

Nearly twenty years ago, I had a front-row seat to one of the most important experiments in modern retail. As a board director of Ascena Retail Group, I watched a company called Justice become the defining brand for an entirely new customer segment: the tween girl.

Justice, a division of Ascena Retail Group, rose spectacularly in the early 2000s, becoming the nation's leading specialty retailer for tween girls, one which defined the modern tween retail category. For a generation of girls ages 7 to 12, a Justice store visit was a rite of passage—entry into a colorful world of fashion, accessories, and self-expression created exclusively for them at a time when few brands recognized tweens as a distinct customer segment. Its mission to celebrate confidence, individuality, and self-expression was genuine, and for millions of girls, a visit to a Justice store became a joyful part of growing up. It was a place and a brand just for them.

Yet, with the benefit of hindsight, I believe Justice conflated two very different ideas: aspiration and confidence. And it compartmentalized two very different brand experiences: marketing and product. Because like most tweens, our customers aspired to emulate the fashion of older girls, and Justice gave it to them— cropped tops, fitted camisoles, skinny jeans, embellished miniskirts, and sequins galore. But wanting to wear older styles is not the same as feeling confident once they're on your body. The clothing which encouraged them to compare themselves to older teens and young women quietly undermined the very confidence the brand hoped to inspire in its marketing and store environments.

Justice gradually lost the emotional connection and trust it had once shared with girls and their mothers. Combined with Ascena's financial challenges and larger industry forces, the brand was sold and lost cultural power just as reports of tweens' declining self-confidence, further fueled by social media, exploded. Indeed, the confidence Justice first recognized as a key need for tweens did not disappear. It grew larger.

If I learned anything from my Justice experience, it is this:

While Justice taught the industry that confidence matters during the tween years, Justice also taught us that confidence cannot simply be marketed or messaged—it must be designed into the product itself.

The tween girl doesn't need clothing that asks her to grow up faster, even when she believes that's what she wants. She needs clothing that helps her grow into herself.

She still wants to feel stylish and connected to her friends, but confidence comes from comfort, authenticity, and self-expression—not from borrowing trends meant for older teens.

Fashion that is playful rather than provocative, expressive rather than revealing, and designed to celebrate who she is today instead of who she thinks she needs to become. Clothes that invite movement instead of self-consciousness. Graphics and details that spark conversation instead of comparison. Accessories that encourage creativity, friendship, and individuality. The coolest tween brands of the future won't tell girls to be confident—they'll design products that make confidence feel natural every time a girl gets dressed.

Justice proved that tween girls deserve brands built just for them. The next generation has an opportunity to go one step further by designing every garment, accessory, story, and customer experience around one simple question: Will this help a girl feel more like herself?

Conventional wisdom tells us that tween girls are fickle trend followers, and most brands respond accordingly—chasing whatever is popular today in the hope of winning tomorrow's sale. I believe that's a profound misunderstanding of what girls are really searching for.

"They aren't chasing trends; they're chasing confidence, belonging, and identity."

The retail industry has simply taught them to mistake one for the other.

Brands have always had the power to shape culture. When that culture influences the confidence of tween girls — at the exact time when they are experiencing their first sustained decline in self-confidence — that power becomes a responsibility. The brands that lead the next generation won't simply ask what's fashionable. They'll ask what's formative.

Conscious commerce requires the courage to break that cycle. It asks founders and brand leaders to resist the easy wins that come from following trends and instead create products that genuinely strengthen a girl's sense of self. That may require saying "no" to styles that will sell today to build a brand that matters for years to come.

Justice proved that tween girls deserve brands built just for them. The next generation of tween brands has an opportunity—and, I would argue, a responsibility—to do something even more important:

Help girls discover that the most beautiful version of themselves isn't the one they're trying to become, but the one they're already becoming.

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