Couture first
Before performance apparel, I made wedding dresses and haute couture pieces in Venezuela.
About
Product development shaped by curiosity, movement and the outdoors.
I’m a product developer working across performance apparel, colour, range building and development systems.
My approach has been shaped by years of working across different markets, travelling widely, and spending as much time as I can outdoors, usually hiking wherever I happen to be.
I bring that mix of observation, product thinking and structure into the way I develop apparel: understanding how things should look, how they need to work, and how to move them clearly from idea to production.
Ingrid Sierra
Product developer
My story
An unexpected route into performance apparel.
I’m originally from Venezuela, where I began my career making wedding dresses and haute couture pieces before leaving the country more than a decade ago.
My path into sportswear happened almost by accident. While living in Medellín, I was volunteering at a dog shelter when a friend told me the activewear company where she worked was struggling to find a designer. I told her I knew almost nothing about activewear. They hired me anyway.
I stayed for four years, learned the category from the inside out, and somewhere along the way completely fell in love with performance apparel.
Since then, my career has expanded across product development, colour, range building, supplier collaboration and development systems, while my life has taken me across Latin America and Europe.
A life in motion
Always moving. Usually outdoors.
I’ve lived across Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, France, Portugal, Spain and Albania, and travelled through more than 25 countries and over 100 cities. Wherever I go, I try to find a trail.
Hiking has become one of the ways I experience a place, away from the obvious routes, at a slower pace, paying attention to landscape, weather, movement and what people actually need from the things they wear.
Travel has also taught me to adapt quickly and work well without perfect conditions. Both have shaped the way I approach product development more than I probably realised at the time.
Outside, Always
Moving between places has shaped both the way I see and the way I work.
How I think
Creativity works better when the decisions behind it are clear.
I care about doing things thoughtfully and properly.
For me, product development is not only about what a garment looks like. It is understanding why it exists, who it serves, how it fits into the wider range, how it needs to function, and what must happen to move it successfully into production.
That is why my work naturally combines creative direction with structure. Colour, silhouette, product architecture, development systems and manufacturing are not separate conversations; they are different parts of the same product.
Colour, silhouette, materials, fit, construction and manufacturing are not separate decisions. They work together to determine whether a product is relevant, functional and executable.
Colour, always
I think the obsession started earlier than I realised.
When I was little, my mum bought me a pair of immaculate white school shoes. I hated the shoes, but loved the box.
Printed on it was a grid of colours. I used to cut out the little squares and spend ages rearranging them into different combinations.
Apparently not much has changed.
I still love colour systems, tonal relationships and unexpected combinations. I even collect eyeshadow palettes largely because I love looking at their colour harmony, despite wearing black eyeshadow most of the time.
A little colour play
05 × 05
BalanceTensionPlay
A few things about me
The details that make the work personal.
Trail first
I try to hike everywhere I travel. It is usually one of the first things I look for in a new place.
10+ years at the zoo
I volunteered for over a decade and got unusually close to manatees, baby alligators and snakes.
Colour collector
I own far more eyeshadow palettes than anyone who mostly wears black eyeshadow reasonably needs.
Quiet, please
I do my best thinking when there’s space to focus — a calm room, a clear problem and enough time to go deep.
I notice things
Small details tend to stay with me — how something is made, why it works, what feels off and what could be better.
Across categories
My experience has never stayed in one lane.
Alongside performance and outdoor apparel, I’ve worked across activewear, swimwear, private-label development and fashion-led product.
That variety has made me comfortable moving between very different product needs while keeping the development process disciplined.
Moving between
- Performance
- Outdoor
- Activewear
- Swimwear
- Private Label
- Fashion
- Running
- Biking
The thread through it all
Different places. Different categories. One way of working: thoughtfully.
I bring curiosity, structure and care to the products I develop and to the people I develop them with.
Whether I’m shaping a range, defining colour direction, solving a product-development problem or building a better system behind the scenes, the goal is the same: make the next decision clearer, and the final product better.