Layered With Love faced the complex challenge of launching a new fashion brand in a highly saturated women's fashion market dominated by two extremes: fast fashion retailers like Zara and H&M offering low-quality, designer-inspired pieces, and established mid-tier competitors like MacDuggal, Dress the Population, and Bardot focused on universal, mainstream designs. The brand needed to carve out a distinct position while establishing clear brand identity, identifying target audience psychographics, developing aligned brand guidelines, and creating a positioning that would differentiate them on major retail floors alongside established competitors. With the soft launch planned for January 2025, Layered With Love required a comprehensive strategy to effectively communicate their unique value proposition of designer-inspired, mid-priced dresses featuring superior fabrics, craftsmanship, and distinctive detailing that reflected emerging designer aesthetics rather than mass-market trends.

Diplomat developed a strategic positioning centered around the "Unapologetically Feminine" brand persona, defining the Layered With Love customer as a modern, confident, free-spirited woman who values sophisticated femininity with unique flair. This authentic persona drove all brand decisions and enabled precise targeting of the identified market gap between fast fashion and luxury brands. Through comprehensive brand strategy development, the production of a comprehensive campaign for Spring 2025 and Fall 2025 collections, sales-driven look-book, strategic retail partnership development, and targeted social media presence within the Southeast and Midwest with influencer partnerships, the brand achieved remarkable early success. Results included securing an exclusive launch at Dillard's across 20+ locations, expanding to prestigious retailers including Rent the Runway, Shopbop, and Bloomingdales for the Fall 2024 collection, generating over 1 million content views, and more than doubling sales through major retailer commitments—all accomplished with less than $5,000 in social media advertising spend, demonstrating exceptional return on investment and validating the strategic positioning approach.