Celebrate International Women’s Day with the Women of Loungefly

International Women’s Day is here! 

To celebrate, we chatted with some of the amazing women that work behind-the-scenes at Loungefly to bring you your favorite fandom accessories. 

Below, read interviews with women that work in licensing, creative, product development, marketing, and more. Hear about their careers, the women in their lives that have helped them along their journeys, and their biggest pieces of advice for women that want to follow in their career footsteps. 

What Do You Do?

I’m the licensing director here at Loungefly. I oversee our partnerships and collaboration strategy for the brand so I get to work with all of our licensors and IP owners for the collections that you all love. 

What Has Been Your Favorite Project to Work on or Favorite Bag? 

One of my favorite projects/bags that we’ve worked on is our first Bridgerton collection that came out last year. Love Bridgerton! This bag is just so much fun. I’m a big fan. And then I have one more – I’m also a big fan of Wicked [so,] our first Glinda bag that we launched for the first movie. It was just so much fun getting to work with Universal and the team did such a great job. 

What Advice Would You Give to Someone Who Wants to Do What You Do? 

My best piece of advice to someone who wants to work in licensing and partnerships is to really get in there. Getting in the weeds and working with your counterparts in marketing, legal, finance, you get to work with all the different teams in the organization, and really getting in there and having an understanding of the business is something that has been really helpful to me but also is just kind of fun. To get to know a little bit about everything is one of the best parts of the job. 

What Women in Your Life Have Helped You on Your Journey? 

I’ve been lucky to have a lot of great women mentors over my career so far. One of my most impactful mentors was my manager here at Loungefly. One of the nicest people in the entire world. She did a really great job lifting me up and teaching me the business in a hands-on and helpful way.

How Does Your Fandom Help You Find Joy? 

Working at a place like Loungefly, you really get to work in pop culture and get to enjoy your fandoms in a new way. Being able to share that with other people is something that’s really, really fun. Getting to work in your fandom and with your fandom and with other people who are fans of so many things, it’s been a really great way to enjoy my fandom while also getting to do it day-to-day and find joy in the work.  

What Do You Do?

I’m a senior designer here at Loungefly on the creative team and some of the key fundamentals of my job are I work on a lot of the sketches and drawings for crossbodies, backpacks…we also pull all the trends quarterly for the wider team to utilize and we come up with really cool innovation such as fun lights or movable parts on a bag. It’s very exciting. 

What Has Been Your Favorite Project to Work on or Favorite Bag? 

I get to work on a lot of fun projects and collections. One of my favorites…is the Macy’s Parade. It was when Minnie Mouse had her debut as a balloon. We got to come up with a really awesome collection and one of the pieces was a drum. It was really, really fun. We got to pick out all the details of this bag, such as the rope trim…I remember this went viral. It was all over Times Square, all over social.

What Advice Would You Give to Someone Who Wants to Do What You Do? 

My number one [piece of] advice I’d give someone who wants to do what I do—I would suggest feeding your brain with as much knowledge as you can, whether that is watching a documentary about how toys are made or perhaps going to an art gallery or looking up trends on Pinterest. You just always want to keep learning. When you learn constantly you become a better designer and you’re able to do so much more when it comes to your craft.

And travel, I also want to suggest that because as an experience I had recently, I went to Italy and there [were] just so many traditions there, they paid attention to the little details on [bags] that I was not really focusing on when I was working on some stuff, and I brought that into my whole design world and decided to focus on [details like] zipper pulls and pockets. It was just such an awesome experience and I think everyone should just continue to learn and grow and travel. 

What Women in Your Life Have Helped You on Your Journey? 

This industry can be a little tough at times but I’ve been really lucky to come across a couple of women in my life that have really put a little spark in my creativity. One memory was when I…was doing a concept board…and I was in the zone and I didn’t realize anyone was watching me, and I went to lunch and this higher-up at the time…she put a post-it on my concept board that said, “This is amazing! I love this!” And [wow! It was] reassurance knowing that I’m good at what I do and I’m good at my job and it gave me the power to just go crazy when it comes to storytelling and just not care – do all the wackiness and get super creative and have a lot of fun… I actually kept the post-it…[it] helps me be a better creative.

How Does Your Fandom Help You Find Joy? 

I’m gonna take you back to a nostalgic time when I was a little girl. I used to love watching Disney and Marvel movies. That was my jam. So Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Spider-Man…I would share these memories with my mom or my grandma and we would sit there and watch these movies and I’d just be fascinated by the way things were drawn and colors and all the storytelling elements…It’s so weird as an adult looking back at that – like how much my fandom has helped me become a creative person and how it shaped my path to working on some pretty awesome licensed products. 

What Do You Do?

My job is basically I do the marketing and events for each of our stores: our headquarters in Everett, Washington, our other flagship stores in Hollywood, and then we have a clearance center in Buckeye. We do local events, our managers do a lot of outreach, I help coordinate off-site events at local conventions and sometimes we’ll do in-store activations at our store for our fans to come and enjoy new product and have a little bit of fun with music, refreshments, things like that. 

What Has Been Your Favorite Project to Work on or Favorite Bag? 

[The BackStory Tote] is my very first and favorite Loungefly bag. I have gifted several backpacks to family members and friends, but this one is my favorite because I can express my passion, which is my personal blog outside of work with the pin details on the front, but it’s also a fantastic work bag. I also take it to do groceries, and it’s great to carry my laptop in. It feels very designer.

What Advice Would You Give to Someone Who Wants to Do What You Do? 

Number one piece of advice would be to open to feedback. Feedback can be challenging but it’s also one of the best tools to have to become better at your job but also in life, so outside of work as well, feedback is really important. 

What Women in Your Life Have Helped You on Your Journey? 

Most of the women in my life have helped me on my journey, so it’s tough to choose just one…My mom is a huge part of who I am today. She was a teacher for 27 years, she’s worked with all ages, taught me a lot about communication and kindness along the way. And right now currently it’s probably my sisters.

How Does Your Fandom Help You Find Joy? 

My fandom right now is definitely movies – I love any Marvel movie, I love the Jurassic franchise, I love the Fast and Furious franchise, and currently it’s perfect because it’s escapism. You know, we’re living in wild times so I love a good movie that just takes me out of it for a couple of hours every night. 

What Do You Do? 

I am responsible for maintaining our relationships with licensors new and old! I work behind the scenes on making sure we find the perfect IPs for our customers and do all the fun negotiating and correspondence throughout the lifetime of the deal!

What Has Been Your Favorite Project to Work on or Favorite Bag? 

I really loved our Monopoly collection we did in 2025 for the anniversary and our Teddiursa web exclusive.

What Advice Would You Give to Someone Who Wants to Do What You Do? 

Be open to listening more than you talk. Licensing is unlike any job I’ve ever had so I think the most important thing is listening to your peers in the space and learning from example and tweaking it to work for you!

What Women in Your Life Have Helped You on Your Journey? 

My director, Kyra. She has truly helped me grow so much in the 2 years I’ve worked under her. She has one of the best work ethics and an insane ability to be able to take things as they come and turn them into something great. It’s really inspiring to work under someone as young and determined as she is.

How Does Your Fandom Help You Find Joy? 

My number one fandom is anime. It truly helps me be authentically myself in every aspect in my life. I’ve been able to learn so much about places and culture that I would’ve never known much about if it wasn’t for anime!

What Do You Do? 

I am a graphic designer at Loungefly. I get to have the wonderful task of designing what the bag will look like. This could include things like illustration, the trim colors, I get to call everything out, I get to call the materials, which is really fun.

We love experimenting with materials or appliques and we’re always innovating and creating new things and that is so much fun to pitch to everyone else, grab ideas from everybody, and make it all come together. I even get to choose what the bag smells like sometimes, so every little detail gets to be all brought together and it is truly such a joy. 

What Has Been Your Favorite Project to Work on or Favorite Bag? 

My favorite project that I ever got to work on was the KPop Demon Hunters HUNTR/X bag. She is so adorable and I was so thrilled that I had the opportunity to work on this. I feel like it really exemplifies the storytelling that we get to do here at Loungefly.

My favorite part is the bag charm, I love that it brought in a little bit of each of the girls. I feel like if the girls from HUNTR/X had this bag, they’d all feel happy and represented by these little charms. The cards are so fun, and there’s just so many hidden details for people who really, really love this movie. So it was truly such a joy to put this together and everybody did such a great job bringing this to stores. I love it so much. She turned out so cute.  

What Advice Would You Give to Someone Who Wants to Do What You Do? 

My number one piece of advice if you want to be a graphic designer or a working artist of any kind is, more than just staying inspired and always making friends, is never, ever give up. It’s the tenacity, it’s sticking with it, it’s being really gritty. It looks really cute, really fun now – I get to do things I love with people who are so amazing, but it wasn’t always easy and I stuck to it.

I failed a lot. I failed again and again and every single thing that ever happened in my career got me to where I am today. I pivoted, I changed my mind, and you can never have this one idea of what your life is going to look like. When you learn to pivot and stick with it and keep going and never give up, the best things can (and will!) happen to you. It’s not going to turn out the way you pictured it, it’s going to turn out even better.

What Women in Your Life Have Helped You on Your Journey? 

There are so many wonderful women who have helped me on my journey. Number one, my mom. She is the sun of my solar system…she’s wonderful and so supportive and I love her so much, and she always believed in me, and I’m really proud of where I am now. 

My friend Lindsay…she taught me to be brave and bold and try new things. My friend Sasha taught me patience and kindness. [My friends] Asia really taught me authenticity and to always stick to who I am, and Anne told me to just go for it and just do it and not wait, don’t make any excuses and just go for it.

Gabby…always also talked about authenticity, being true, and thinking outside the box. Brittany…was so sweet and so kind to me and really cracked my head open about how I think about design and symmetry and what that means to character. Stephanie…is an amazing person who taught me patience.

How Does Your Fandom Help You Find Joy? 

I am a huge fan of video games, all sorts of video games, cozy ones, point-and-click mystery games, and what I love about it is I’m one girl out of my three brothers, and especially as an adult, it helps us stay connected, we can play games online and stuff. That’s what I love about video games, it connected us as kids and it connects us today.

I have friends that live abroad and we can still connect with video games, and it makes this really wonderful community, where even if I’m doing it by myself, I can design things and customize and it like tickles that little imaginative part of my brain, but also you can just laugh and enjoy and connect with people who you’re not necessarily in close proximity with…video games really help me stay connected with those who are far away. 

Celebrate your favorite female characters & get style inspiration with these blogs: 

• Feel Like Royalty with Our Latest Loungefly Disney Princess Accessories
• The Loungefly 2026 Minnie Rock the Dots Look Book
• Loungefly KPop Demon Hunters Accessories Are Here