Michelle Palmer Designs

Michelle Palmer makes heritage silk and custom lace pieces handmade in New York City's Garment District — a level of craft that demands a store experience to match. The brief called for custom Shopify Liquid development to go far beyond what Dawn's default sections could offer, plus a Klaviyo email strategy calibrated to a high-price-point luxury buyer rather than a promotional-discount audience.

The centrepiece of the build was a fully custom hero slideshow with four distinct block types — Classic, Statement, Editorial, and Manifesto — each designed for a different kind of brand moment. Animated pill navigation, precise z-index management for Dawn's mobile drawer compatibility, and smooth transitions between slides were all engineered to feel like a fashion editorial, not a theme template. Custom SVG navigation icons for cart, account, and search completed the visual language across the store.

At a luxury price point, abandoned checkout emails that offer a 10% discount signal desperation rather than confidence. The two-email abandoned checkout flow was written with deliberate tonal contrast — Email 1 warm and brand-focused, Email 2 more direct — with zero discounting. The six-email welcome series was restructured to build brand story progressively, introducing the heritage, the craft, and the NYC Garment District lineage across the sequence before ever asking for a purchase.