KENNETT SQUARE, PA—Julie Morris, who was named vice president of merchandising for Calico at the end of 2012, has just been promoted again to vice president of stores and operations for the 73 company owned stores in the chain.

This move follows the departure of Laura Grier, the former vice president of stores who was with Calico for 14 years. Grier was an inside person and not well known to the industry at large like Morris.   In addition, Jan Jessup, who has been working for Calico for over 40 years in marketing, public relations and communications posts and  often worked in tandem with the Calico buying group, will assume most of Morris’ responsibilities in merchandising, she confirmed.

Jessup and Morris report to Bert Kerstetter, chairman and owner of Calico.

While Jessup now heads merchandising, Morris will continue to be responsible for custom labor, visual merchandising and store planning. Initially, Morris will tour the Calico outlets in 37 States and work with the six regional managers. The focus of Morris’ activities will be to help Jessup cement Calico’s vision to be the fabric fashion leader at retail.

“We will continue the momentum we have built in transforming the way product moves into our stores,” Jessup explained. “Our speed to market is the fastest in the industry. We expect to show more product than ever before and emphasize greater turnover than previously,” she emphasized.

“The way we merchandise today reduces the heavy investment in inventory we used to have when we stocked goods at all locations. We can now move into and out of things faster than ever and be the fashion leader as a result.”

“Calico intends to claim the position of fashion leader in fabrics retailing,” she said. “As long as our vendors keep their commitments in terms of deliveries to our Kennett Square warehouse and create great, original product, they’ll be good partners for Calico. We’ve always had close vendor relationships.”

Jessup also pointed out that prints are trending upward. “Many of the design trends work well with print capabilities whether it’s watercolor impressionist design or Ikat looks that are  expensive as jacquards, but less expensive as a print,” she stated. She sees prints in the place of complicated jacquard designs. “We always look for a good mix.”

“We always offer our customers a well edited collection in store which saves them from having to look at 30,000 samples,” she added. Jessup is planning to offer Calico stores a large display this fall with the ability of the regional managers to offer a variation of product in each market. “We will change the selection a few times during the year and look forward to inspiring our customers with more choices than ever before.”