Nicole Drupka
Making brands mean something.
About Me
I’m Nicole Drupka, a strategic design and fashion business professional interested in how brands build culture, tell stories, and create experiences people want to be part of.
I’m completing a BBA in Strategic Design and Management at Parsons School of Design, with a minor in Fashion Studies. My experience across fashion retail, editorial styling, guest relations, and PR has taught me to look at a brand from more than one angle: how it looks, how it communicates, and how people actually experience it.
I’m drawn to work that connects insight with execution—building a relevant point of view, finding the right cultural context, and creating a story that can travel across press, content, partnerships, and real-world experiences.
HOW I THINK
From insight to impact.
01
Find the tension.
Start with the audience, cultural context, and the problem a brand has an opportunity to solve.
02
Build the story.
Define a clear idea and translate it into a visual direction, message, experience, or partnership.
03
Make it travel.
Consider how the idea works across PR, creators, editorial, social content, and in-person touchpoints.
Campaign Concept
WHY KMARIE?
Kmarie brings a creator-led perspective to the collaboration, helping SKIMS connect with an audience that discovers fashion and lifestyle through personality, visual storytelling, and everyday inspiration. Rather than serving solely as the face of a campaign, she would help translate the brand’s identity into a more personal and culturally relevant story.
Her role would be to make the collection feel lived in, desirable, and easy to imagine within the audience’s own lives.
THE CONCEPT
A conceptual Valentine’s Day collaboration exploring how SKIMS could celebrate modern romance through the lens of creator Kassandra Marie, known as Kmarie. Her personal style and creator presence offer a way to bring a more individual, lifestyle-driven perspective to the brand’s world of intimate apparel.
The campaign reimagines Valentine’s Day beyond traditional romance, celebrating the relationship between personal style, confidence, and self-expression.
Kim Kardashian’s previous SKIMS campaigns demonstrate how casting can give familiar products a distinct personality. Lana Del Rey brought a nostalgic, romantic identity to the brand’s 2024 Valentine’s campaign, while ROSÉ offered a playful interpretation of romance for Valentine’s Day 2025. Separately, Sabrina Carpenter’s April 2024 campaign connected SKIMS with her recognizable pop persona.
A partnership with Kassandra would build on that approach without trying to replicate the scale of a global celebrity campaign. Instead, its strength would lie in giving an emerging model a clearly defined story. Kassandra would not simply wear the collection; she would embody the campaign’s central idea that feeling desirable begins with how you feel about yourself.
Kassandra Marie Crespo brings more than modeling experience: she is a Puerto Rican model, hairstylist, and co-founder of La Vie Models, a booking agency she helped build after experiencing the challenges of freelance modeling herself. Her background gives the concept a stronger foundation—someone creating her own opportunities, not simply posing for the camera
We would see Kassandra getting ready before a shoot, putting the finishing touches on her hair, or winding down after a long day. These would be proposed scenes inspired by her work, rather than a scripted version of her private life. SKIMS would sit naturally within those moments: a comfortable set before the day starts, lingerie underneath a favorite outfit, or something soft to come home to.
The Valentine’s connection would be simple: self-love isn’t only flowers and love notes. It can also mean making time for yourself while building a life you care about. For Kassandra, whose agency grew out of her and her co-founder’s firsthand experience as working models, that message has a more specific foundation than a generic statement about confidence.
The result would still feel romantic, but less staged: a Valentine’s campaign about a woman with a full life, wearing SKIMS for herself.
Brand Strategy Takeaway
The strongest collaborations create a shared point of view rather than simply pairing a brand with a recognizable face. For SKIMS and Kassandra Marie Crespo, that connection would center on confidence, intimacy, and personal expression. By giving Kassandra a meaningful role in the story, SKIMS could make its Valentine’s Day campaign feel aspirational yet personal—offering customers not only something to wear, but a feeling to connect with.
Jean's x 3RD SPACE
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Jean's x 3RD SPACE 〰️
Jean’s × 3rd Space is a proposed dinner series built around a simple idea: a good night out should leave you with more than a few photos. Bringing together Jean’s intimate, design-forward setting and 3rd Space’s focus on connection, the collaboration would give New Yorkers a reason to step outside their usual circle and meet over dinner.
The concept, “Stay for Another,” would follow the natural rhythm of a great evening: arriving for a meal, finding yourself in an unexpected conversation, and staying longer than you planned. Guests could come alone or with a friend, with shared tables and family-style dishes giving people an easy way to connect. Music would shape the evening without competing with conversation, building in energy as dinner moves into drinks.
Rather than making the night feel like a networking event, the experience would let connection happen through thoughtful hosting. Introductions, seating, and the pace of service would matter more than formal icebreakers. Jean’s would provide the hospitality and setting, while 3rd Space would help bring people together and shape the social experience.
How It Comes to Life
A welcome that makes arriving alone feel comfortable: A host would greet guests, introduce them to someone at their table, and help the evening begin without the awkwardness of entering a room of strangers.
A dinner designed for sharing: Family-style dishes and a set menu would create a shared experience, keeping the focus on the table rather than individual ordering.
A reason to stay: After dinner, a shift in music and an invitation to continue at the bar would give guests room to move beyond their original seats and keep conversations going.
Details that carry the collaboration: Co-branded menus, a signature cocktail, and photography focused on candid moments would give the series a recognizable identity without making the restaurant feel like an advertisement.
Brand Strategy Takeaway
The opportunity is to create something neither brand would deliver in quite the same way alone: a restaurant evening built intentionally around meeting people. Jean’s would become more than the venue, and 3rd Space more than the name on the invitation. Their roles would come together through the experience itself—how guests are welcomed, who they sit beside, and whether they leave wanting to come back.