There are few sectors of the economy that offer as wide and interesting a range of career opportunities as fashion. Role Call highlights some of the industry’s most interesting jobs and the talented people who do them. For more information about fashion industry roles like this and others, visit BoF Careers.

LONDON, United Kingdom — Milan born Lucia Restelli is the international sales director for designer brands and beauty at Rainbowwave, a multi-brand wholesale showroom and communications agency based in London, Paris and New York. Restelli studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, where her final project examined the relationship between fashion and space. While studying, she landed her first showroom job — albeit, working in the kitchens — and in 2002 met Manuela Feltre, Dries van Noten's agent in the Italian market, who asked Restelli to help run the Italian showrooms. Inspired to continue to work in fashion, she helped launch a friend's contemporary denim and jersey brand, where she learned about production, design, visual merchandising, running a store and curating events. In 2007 Restelli moved to London and first met Maria Lemos, the founder of Rainbowwave, which was at that point a small business. Restelli went on to work for shoe designers Emma Hope and Georgina Goodman, where she covered sales and marketing, before, in 2011 Restelli met Lemos again. This time, Lemos employed her to cover sales for Peter Pilotto's first resort collection, and Restelli has since moved through the ranks at Rainbowwave as the agency grew.

BoF: Please describe your current role.

As international sales director my role is to plan and oversee the worldwide wholesale business strategy of all designer and beauty brands represented by Rainbowwave Showroom — labels such as Peter Pilotto, Marios Schwab, Prabal Gurung, Rosetta Getty, Rejina Pyo, Jupe by Jackie and Edeline Lee. I am the bridge between the designers and the stores who buy the brands, and my goal is to build a strong business, facilitate the communication and provide the right direction for both. It is important to tailor the distribution strategy to the strengths and potentials of each brand, through existing business relationships and by forging new ones.

Understanding a brand and its strengths is as important as understanding a market and its needs. Therefore, extensive travels are mandatory, to spend time with the designers and get to know their world and vision. Monitoring the business is also a key part of the role, especially feeding important information to them, such as how their collections perform in store, who buys their product — or who should buy it — and how all this can be incorporated into their designs, in sync with their creative flow.

BoF: What attracted you to the role?

The forever challenging nature of the job is the most attractive part of it. There is a continuous need for learning and adapting, and using different knowledge within a single project.

I studied architecture at university in Italy and, before that, learned ancient Greek and Latin literature — both studies gave me analytical skills and the ability to read different “languages” based on the context. Liaising with creative minds, businesses, numbers, human realities and the fluctuation of economies requires unconventional thinking, and reading situations and facts in different ways. All of this is very exciting! Plus, I love travelling and I am always up for a long trip around the world.

BoF: What is the most exciting project or initiative you have worked on?

The most exciting experience is being part of the growth of a designer and being there for the long term to help them to the next level of their business, in an organic and natural way. I joined Rainbowwave in June 2011 and since then have been working with Peter Pilotto, growing with them and helping them succeed.

On a side note, being a beauty junkie, I have been able to indulge my personal passion for beauty and explore its relationship to the fashion world. After personally discovering Susanne Kaufmann a few years ago in Berlin, Maria Lemos agreed to launch the beauty department with Susanne Kaufmann as its first brand. We exposed the brand to fashion stores, anticipating the fashion customer's shift of attention to lifestyle products, and Susanne is now in the best stores worldwide, present on Net-a-Porter and has a standalone space at Liberty of London.

BoF: How is your role changing? What are the forces driving this change?

Change is being driven by fluctuations in the economy, political unrest, social environment — anything affecting our lives and history affects the shopping behaviour and therefore the business of the stores and brands that we work with. Our role is to try to foresee these changes that affect the delicate balance of the business of fashion, and help the fashion brand to build strong enough foundations to be able to support itself and the businesses it works with.

BoF: Tell us about a time you failed and how you learned from it.

There are so many challenges at different levels, from liaising with designers and clients, to managing the team. The aim is to become better at acknowledging a failure, accepting it and learning how to cope with it, then using it as precious knowledge to do better in the future.

BoF: What advice do you have for people who are interested in doing what you do?

I like bullet points, so I would sum it up with 10 golden rules that work for me:

1. Be curious. If you don't have the eyes to see what is around you, then what is the point?

1. Think outside the box. Sometimes it helps to be a step ahead.

1. Be passionate. You can get more gratification from seeing a designer succeed and a client get excited about a collection, than from a monetary reward.

1. Be responsible. You are responsible for other peoples' businesses, and in some cases their entire life is dedicated to it. If you treat their business as if it is your own, it will not feel like a pressure, but an exciting goal, to help them succeed.

1. Be precise. You have to be organised, precise and clear in your communication, in your work environment and in the way you relate to people.

1. Be a juggler. Learn how to multitask and always smile while you do it.

1. Be human, be understanding and positive.

1. Be modest. Your job is to give an exceptional service and be proud of it.

1. Be analytical. You have to read between the lines; numbers alone won't help you understand a business and make it grow.

1. Be hungry to succeed. Your success is the result of the hard work of many: those who design and create a collection, those who believe in it and sell it in store, and yourself. A celebration tastes better when it's shared.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

To explore exciting fashion industry roles like this and others, visit BoF Careers, the global marketplace for fashion talent.