When it comes to merging bold creativity with operational excellence, few brands do it better than Camilla. Known for their vibrant prints, collaborations with cultural icons like Disney and White Lotus and celebrity fans like Beyoncé and Mirand Kerr, Camilla has evolved into a global fashion powerhouse with a growing footprint of luxury boutiques across Australia, the US and beyond.
Leading their technology transformation is Luke Matthews, Head of IT at Camilla. With over a decade of experience driving digital innovation, including as CTO at Kitchen Warehouse and as a senior consultant at Retail Directions, Luke is focused on building the systems, data foundations and operational resilience that supports Camilla’s creativity, scaling and seamless customer experiences.
In this episode of Add To Cart, Luke takes us behind the scenes of Camilla’s tech engine room. From the data foundations setting them up for future AI innovation, to how they handle massive traffic spikes and why integration is the key to scaling globally.
Prioritise Data Infrastructure Early
Before chasing AI dreams, Luke says brands need to get real about their data quality. At Camilla, his first priority has been building a clean, consistent, real-time view across every customer and product touchpoint.
“Getting clean, consistent, real-time data across all touchpoints is critical. Most businesses have reasonable visibility over their inventory, over their transaction flows across channels…[but] overlaying that with customer clickstream data and every customer behavioral interaction with the business is really, really important.”
Luke warned against the temptation to “stack shiny tools” on top of messy foundations. Bad data habits can quickly snowball and compound the chaos.
If you start layering in new tools without fixing your data, you’re just multiplying the mess.
His advice is clear: audit your current data. Identify what’s clean, what’s patchy, and where integration gaps exist. Build a roadmap for unification first. then layer in personalisation, AI and automation on top of something solid Otherwise, every shiny new tech layer will just make your systems (and your customer experience) worse, not better.
Plan for Traffic Spikes Beyond Black Friday
Camilla’s White Lotus collaboration wasn’t just a fashion launch — it was a global traffic event that pushed their systems harder than traditional Black Friday sales ever had.
“Black Friday has got nothing on a partnership launch. When a collaboration drops, the demand spikes instantly and enormously, and it’s all organic.”
Unlike many brands that stagger releases or use gated drops to manage traffic, Camilla keeps launches open to all, meaning every part of the business must be ready for impact.
“We know the expected demand, all of the teams are on board and ready, prepared to handle it. And then it’s just a massive couple of days afterwards, particularly I would say for our supply chain team and for the marketing team.”
Luke’s operational playbook is simple but ruthless: expect the worst-case demand, prepare for it at every level, and test systems like you’re launching a new product, not just pushing inventory. It’s all about stress-testing infrastructure early, and making sure marketing, IT and supply chain teams are aligned well before the big day arrives.
Best-of-Breed Needs Best-in-Class Integration
Camilla’s tech stack is a best-of-breed mix: NetSuite runs the ERP, Shopify powers ecommerce, and a separate CDP fuels marketing personalisation. But great system alone isn’t enough. Success is all about how you stitch them together.
Integration is a challenge with any best-of-breed stack. There’s still a lot to be done on that, but we’re making good progress just around trying to get our integrations as seamless as possible.
No matter how impressive your systems are individually, it’s integration that unlocks real value across marketing, sales, supply chain and finance. That’s why his team is investing heavily in middleware solutions and real-time connectivity. Real-time data across every department is the goal.
“You can cross reference all of your inventory data, sales data with clickstream, with everything else to be able to gain some really great insights.”
For scaling brands, integration is what transforms data into decisions. WithoutIf brands want their technology investments to pay off, they need to prioritise system stitching rather than system shopping. Without it, even the best systems stay disconnected, and customer experience suffers.
Great Brands Are Built on Strong Tech Foundations
Success in ecommerce isn’t just about creativity, product or brand heat. It’s about building invisible systems that make those things shine under pressure. The brands best positioned for global growth are the ones investing early in the boring but essential stuff: clean data, robust systems and bulletproof integration.
While it’s tempting to chase shiny new technologies like AI, Luke’s focus stays on fundamentals. Without solid data pipelines, without a backbone that connects operations to customer experience, no amount of marketing magic can save you when your brand scales, or when the traffic surge hits harder than you planned.
