An international style ambassador

A U.S-based Guyanese girl is living her dreams at one of the world’s top design houses

By Venessa Deosaran

June Haynes is a fashion executive in the glitz and glamour of the international fashion world, living her dreams while proving that great talent can come from beautiful Guyana.
Describing herself as a creative, curious, fun person who loves fashion, giving back, and life, the US-based Guyanese fashion connoisseur now serves as senior vice president of retail, and brand ambassador at Valentino, the luxury fashion house founded by master couturier Valentino Gravani.
When June was a young girl in Guyana, she would spend her afternoons in her mom’s clothing store flipping through Vogue magazines that had been sent from America. Her love of style brought her to New York, where she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology and majored in fashion buying and merchandising.  The combination of determination and destiny landed her exactly where she wanted to be.
As Valentino executive, June oversees operations for Valentino stores across the world, as well as acting as the brand’s unofficial style ambassador.  Her responsibilities extend to cover all Valentino boutiques in the United States. In addition to direct supervision of all day-to-day operations, Haynes is also responsible for long range strategic planning, including sales growth and retail strategic action, as well as leading a large retail management team. She also manages all M Missoni boutiques owned by Valentino in North America. In addition, in 2007 she was given the task of refining Valentino’s retail strategy in Japan.
Her career in retail began at Barney’s New York; she managed the designer floor, and it was there that she met Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, when the two paid an undercover visit to Barney’s. The result of that meeting was employment as manager at Dolce and Gabbana’s first boutique in North America on Madison Avenue, which opened 1997.
She is known as much for her business acumen and her accomplishments as for her sense of chic. The fashion visionary has been named “best dressed” by international magazine Harper’s Bazaar, and Oprah magazine calls her the “Glamour Girl” and regularly publishes her style tips.
She has been extremely successful at building high-performance management and in-store sales teams while leading sophisticated apparel and merchandising organizations with profit and loss responsibility up to $50 million. Haynes is a strategic visionary with a clear sense of purpose and urgency when faced with diverse situational challenges, highly skilled at inspiring staff to exceed business objectives and establishing sales and merchandising excellence within culturally diverse environments, translating conceptual models into specific growth strategies, and planning/executing multi-faceted global business development campaigns designed to improve market share, and gross revenue.
Even in her personal style, she expresses both the cutting edge fashion sense and integrity that are the hallmarks of her career. “If you are employed by a fashion house it is important that you become a brand ambassador. Much of one’s business is done not just inside the store, but outside, while networking and socializing so that you are able to build stronger relationships,” she said in a recent interview.
Not just in her daily professional life, but each of the many worlds in which she moves, this integrity, commitment, and creative energy are the traits that make Haynes in demand as a personal advisor, mentor, and inspiring leader. She serves in several boards sharing her expertise the Museum of Natural History and March to the Top Africa.
When not running the business, she looks forward to the work she does with March for the Top, an organization that supports the underprivileged in Africa. She mentioned her philanthropy work with the organization brings her back to what’s really important and helps her be a better leader.
The fashion icon is known for her collection of serious shoes and statement bags. In a recent interview with overseas magazine, Bal Harbour Shops, Haynes said her iPad is actually her favourite accessory. “I can’t seem to leave home without it, although maybe it’s become fashion too?”
When asked who her style icon was, she aptly replied, “We are all style icons. Fashion is about individual style.” And when it comes to her own style, there are certain key elements she cannot live without, like her edgy heels. “I live in these Valentino Rockstud heels.” (Taken from Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)