Fashion Website Refactoring
Led the migration of a fashion retail brand site from a long-running WordPress stack to a modern Next.js front-end backed by a Laravel API for content and operations.
Context
Led the migration of a fashion retail brand site from a long-running WordPress stack to a modern Next.js front-end backed by a Laravel API for content and operations.
Challenge
The legacy site was sprawling with plugins, slow to render on key category and product pages, and risky to evolve. The brand needed a faster, more maintainable front-end without freezing day-to-day editorial delivery.
Approach
- Modeled the migration as an incremental cutover rather than a big-bang rewrite, so editorial teams kept shipping while pages moved over one surface at a time.
- Built the new front-end on Next.js with a shared component system so visual consistency stays cheap as the catalog grows.
- Kept content and operations on a Laravel API, allowing back-office teams to keep familiar workflows while the front-end modernized underneath them.
Architecture
PHP and Laravel and React and Next.js form the core stack, with the application hosted on AWS and delivered through a controlled pipeline.
Outcomes
- Replaced a slow, plugin-heavy WordPress front-end with a faster, type-safe Next.js stack.
- Improved page performance on key brand and product surfaces.
- Made future front-end iteration safer and faster without rewriting back-office systems.
Reflection
The most valuable architecture was not the most elaborate one. It was the set of boundaries that let the team make local changes while preserving confidence in the whole system.