Kirna Zabête founder Beth Buccini has never seen a new brand be embraced so quickly by her store’s customers.
In spring 2023, the downtown New York boutique began carrying TWP, the womenswear label founded by former Theory designer Trish Wescoat Pound. By the end of that year, Kiruna Zabete had sold 2,500 branded shirts, one of the best sales Buccini had seen for an emerging label. She has increased her orders five times this year.
TWP’s proposal is not innovative. The company sells elevated basics like breezy “boyfriend” shirts and wide-leg pleated pants in neutral hues. But it resonates.
“Once you buy something, you want more,” Buccini said. “It feels very snug and sophisticated and put together. That’s what people are looking for.”
The moment of quiet luxury in the zeitgeist may be over, but the trend is still minimalist, approachable-chic clothing with just the right amount of design, such as a black blazer with a uniquely cut lapel. and jersey tops, leaving behind a thriving market. Neckline with intricate draping. No brand capitalizes on that desire more than Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s The Row. Last month, the brand raised a funding round that valued it at over $1 billion.
The Row forms something of a holy trinity, along with Kite, the New York luxury brand that received investment from Stripes last year, and Totem, the fast-growing contemporary brand. The Row’s annual revenue is estimated to be over $250 million. Khaite and Toteme are both worth over $100 million.
Each carves its own niche within the broader aesthetic. The Row is the pinnacle of minimalism with an emphasis on tailoring (its name comes from London’s famous Savile Row). Khaite is a little bolder, with exaggerated details like wide shoulders and an oversized fit. Toteme offers Scandinavian-inspired pieces like whipstitched jackets with built-in scarves and chunky striped turtleneck sweaters.
Behind these three brands is a rapidly expanding group of brands, most of them American, founded or designed primarily by women, offering no-frills designs with luxurious fabrics and high-fashion sensibilities. Promises appearance. For those who can’t afford a $1,500 cashmere sweater from The Row or Khaite, Posse, Leset, Roucha and The Frankie Shop offer knitwear for about a fifth of the price. Australian brand St. Agni, Los Angeles-born Co, and New York-based brands Kallmeyer, Nili Lotan, Attersee, and TWP sit somewhere in between these price points. The list goes on.
Some of these up-and-coming brands are breaking out, with TWP on track to double its sales to nearly $30 million this year. Still, the proliferation of minimalist brands raises questions. How many other brands can put a spin on the perfect pair of jeans, a beige sweater, or a classic black blazer and still find success?
That momentum also applies to minimalism. In September, Leset, which sells dressy knit loungewear, opened its first store in New York’s West Village. Kallmeyer, known for its sophisticated crewneck button-up jackets, held its debut runway show at New York Fashion Week. TWP and Posse are each considering new categories such as leather belts and handbags, and St. Agni plans to launch eyewear and swimwear by the end of the year.
Like The Row and its ultra-luxury brands, a group of female-led startups sells state of mind as much as comfortable sweaters.
“This is a new question: Does luxury depend on price? I think that’s an outdated idea,” Pound said. “Luxury is about providing women with really well-made clothes made from the best fabrics, having so much functionality and practicality in those clothes, and making them feel good when they wear them.” is.”
modern women’s clothing
Fashion has a long history of female designers fusing form and function. Coco Chanel spearheaded the casualization of women’s clothing and did away with restrictive corsets. In the 1990s, Donna Karan created corporate pieces for a generation where more women were entering the workforce than ever before. As creative director of Celine, Phoebe Philo’s modern approach to chic simplicity changed the way women wanted to dress.
The inspiration for this latest generation of the brand likewise comes from the founder’s own sewing aspirations, which are often shared with its target consumers. Kallmeyer founder Daniela Kallmeyer wanted to create a suit that didn’t feel too corporate. Founder Isabel Wilkinson Scholl said the idea for Attersee, a brand that emphasizes casual knitwear and sophisticated tailoring, came from her own experience spending eight-plus hour days as an editor at T Magazine.
“I didn’t want to look too trend-driven, and frankly I couldn’t wear designer-priced pieces every day,” Wilkinson Scholl said. “I was really looking for something comfort-oriented, sophisticated, easy and approachable, yet elevated. It was a very personal need that I was fulfilling.”
Carefully crafted, well-designed essentials are always in style, but they feel especially relevant right now. Luxury’s biggest brands have raised prices, putting many products out of reach for all but the wealthiest shoppers. Today, when aspiring customers shop at Top Marketplace, they’re looking for timeless pieces that can be worn year after year. That desire is underscored by the resurgence of ’90s minimalist style icons like the late Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Online discourse.
At the same time, my wardrobe has also relaxed since the pandemic. There is a growing need for clothes that, as Wilkinson Scholl puts it, “cope with everyday life,” but still look good. The same woman who might have bought a pair of Jimmy Choo stilettos for the office 15 years ago might invest in a great cashmere sweater or formal yet comfortable pants instead.
While the look is relatively timeless, things like the width of pant hems and the fit of shirts will evolve. The direction is often given by the customer. Wilkinson Scholl attends events throughout the United States and meets directly with customers. Kallmeyer spends time at her brand’s Orchard Street store on New York’s Lower East Side, talking to shoppers. These women’s innate understanding of the consumer is shaped by the fact that they themselves deal with the same fashion issues.
“If you can take away the hassle of getting dressed in the morning for your customers, you can give them clarity,” Kallmeyer said.
Customers return the favor through strong word of mouth. Attersee does not invest any money in digital advertising. It took Australian minimalist brand St. Agni five years to establish a marketing budget. In particular, Substack writers like The Love List’s Jess Graves and influencer Courtney Grow are vocal proponents of this style.
“This isn’t just any black blazer. It’s the perfect black blazer that drapes perfectly and makes you feel like a million bucks every time you wear it,” Graves said.
Choose your own growth path
While The Row, Khaite, and Toteme have brought in outside investment, most of the smaller minimalist brands behind them have received no outside investment. Some founders say they’re not building the next billion-dollar brand.
Jill Wenger, founder and creative director of Roucha, wants to avoid compromising her vision when making decisions like adding new colors or introducing new product categories. He says he wants to be a company.
“We’re definitely not chasing numbers,” said Lara Fells, co-founder of St. Agni, which has not attracted outside investment. “It’s more about growing the business and bringing out products that we’re really proud of.”
Still, there are models for how to grow a minimalist brand. We often start with a hero product that we feel is missing in the market and add accessories once the core collection has gained momentum.
Leset, for example, started with casual but office-appropriate tops and bottoms and expanded its clientele with relaxed cotton T-shirts, cardigans, and boxer shorts. The company added leather-soled slippers last year and plans to launch handbags in the next three to four years, said founder and CEO Lili Chemula. Attersee tests new categories with a single product and gauges interest. When it comes to bags, we started with the Blair style, a small crescent-shaped bag, and this fall we rolled out a larger version, the Ven bag.
These brands are agile and responsive to consumer demands. Posse, for example, discontinued its bag collection early after its 2016 launch amid increased competition from more established brands offering similar silhouettes. The brand introduced slouchy drawstring handbags in this year’s holiday collection, a category it plans to strengthen next year, founder and creative director Daniel Malham said.
stand out
The biggest challenge for a new generation of brands is to prove themselves different enough to become famous.
The Row has the aura of a secretive fashion insider, in contrast to its A-list founders. Both Khaite and Toteme have developed unique angles when it comes to making minimalism modern and cool.
“There’s space for each brand in the door, and they’re cannibalizing each other,” said Summer Hall, president of Elise Walker, an independent multi-brand luxury retailer that stocks brands such as The Row, TWP and Kalmeyer. I believe that’s not the case. But brands are still honing their unique point of view, and it’s even more difficult when creating must-have products that usually don’t have a logo.
Kalmeyer said this is helpful when selling to customers who are concerned about small details, such as slimming the sleeves of a sweater so that the sleeve stays up even after the wearer lifts it up her arm. This is a feature introduced by
“I might make a navy cashmere sweater, but the details of how it forms on the body are very Kallmeyer-esque coded,” she said. “Luxury is in the details.”
Maintaining differentiation helps labels gain loyal customers and build long-term business.
“Just because there’s more interest in ‘classics’ doesn’t mean they’re no longer classics,” Graves says. “Even after people leave this conversation, they will endure, and people who shop this way will continue to shop this way.”
