nyc-fashion
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Judy Duzich
Judy Duzich is the merchandising chief at Century 21 Stores, the lower-Manhattan off-price retailer famous for stocking designer labels at 40 to 65 percent off. She joined Century 21 as an assistant buyer in 1990, spent roughly three decades climbing to vice president and divisional merchandise manager, left after the chain shut down in 2020, and returned in 2022 to help rebuild it. When Century 21 reopened at 22 Cortlandt Street in May 2023 - 100,000 square feet across four floors, down from 250,000 across seven - Duzich was the one deciding what actually went on the racks. Her stated brief was to make the assortment more curated, more elevated and more relevant, organized by brand and by style instead of piled into bins, with fresh deliveries arriving constantly so that the store's famous treasure-hunt logic still worked. A Fashion Institute of Technology graduate in marketing and fashion merchandising, she is one of the few people who has bought for Century 21 in three separate decades.
Leland Kass
Leland Kass is a New York based marketing executive and the Chief Marketing Officer of Lafayette 148 New York, the Brooklyn Navy Yard luxury womenswear house led by Deirdre Quinn. Kass built a career at the intersection of luxury retail and storytelling, with senior roles at Maria Tash, rag & bone, Saks Fifth Avenue and Conde Nast, plus an independent consulting practice, LKK Advisory. The through line is brand narrative, digital and e-commerce growth, and customer engagement for premium consumer brands.