Sporty & Rich continues its impressive growth with a category expansion.
The four-year-old underwear brand founded by Emily Oberg will launch its first swimwear collection on Monday, marking the brand’s latest category expansion. Sporty & Rich first forayed into swimwear with a collaboration with Solid & Striped last year.
The first Sporty & Rich swimwear collection includes bikinis and one-pieces in a brown, off-white and green color palette. Both styles include a high-cut bottom and strappy tops.
The collection also offers pieces such as t-shirts, shorts, button-down shirts, crew necks and hats that match the swimsuit.
A campaign image for the Sporty & Rich swimwear collection.
Courtesy of Sporty & Rich
“I make things that I want to use that I feel like maybe I can’t find, or things that I’ve found, but want to improve,” Oberg said of his design process. “Everything is quite simple. I would never do fashion pieces, anything risky or too inventive. It’s a bunch of uniform clothes and just a bunch of staples and staples that I’d like to have in my wardrobe now and also 10 years from now.”
The Sporty & Rich swimwear collection arrives as the brand continues its growth trajectory, according to the company. Sporty & Rich said it saw sales jump from $400,000 in 2019 to $4 million in 2020, thanks to the boom in loungewear as people stayed home during the COVID-19 pandemic and looked for options. of comfortable clothes. The following year, the brand generated sales of $12 million and projects sales of $20 million to $24 million this year.
“People have always been using [loungewear] since before it became popular [during the pandemic]Oberg said. “I don’t think they’ll ever stop wearing sweatshirts and comfortable clothes. There is a time and a place for it.”
While Oberg saw unprecedented growth amid the pandemic, he said the fast pace nearly destroyed his brand as he struggled to keep up with demand.
“Sometimes growth can kill a brand,” he said. “That happens often and before COVID[-19]We were quite small. Our sales were nothing special but then with COVID[-19] it spread and the growth nearly killed us. I would say we were on the verge of it, but we found out quickly.”
Oberg sustained his business by growing his team and setting up systems to run more smoothly, such as creating a customer service team and using a new logistics center and factory.
A campaign image for the Sporty & Rich swimwear collection.
Courtesy of Sporty & Rich
These changes also came at a time of controversy for the founder and her label. The brand initially came under fire at the start of the pandemic for an insensitive Instagram post that compared the costs of fast food items to “real food” (items like an apple, instant oatmeal, or a bag of lettuce) with the caption, “You don’t have to be rich to be healthy.” Many called the brand, which has since deleted the post, elitism.
Oberg was also criticized for allegedly making insensitive comments and laughing at racially insensitive jokes on a podcast.
“I mean, I’m a woman myself, a founder of an Asian minority, so it’s not like I’ve never faced discrimination, so I’m very aware and I’ve dealt with these things firsthand,” Oberg said in response to a question. on the controversies “It’s not that I need to consciously not be a racist person because I think that’s embedded in me and that’s how I was born. I feel like some of these other founders had to go all out and read all these books on how not to be racist, but for me, that has never been a problem in who I am. Being more sensitive to the fact that not everyone has access to healthy food, which was one of the main points, and even exercising or taking supplements, I would say [I was] I wasn’t aware, but I think I wasn’t being sensitive enough to people. Especially with the wellness site – writing all these health tips and not realizing that many people can’t even do what we’re saying. So I think in that sense, the content is more for everyone now, we have a lot of articles on how to be healthy with essentially minimal resources, and these are things that you can do when you don’t have a budget. And in terms of the brand overall, I’d say it’s pretty affordable, the price is on the low end compared to other streetwear brands.”
Sporty & Rich sells T-shirts for $60, sweatshirts for between $150 and $185, and sports bras for $85.
Oberg explained that hiring more staff members and implementing new systems has helped rectify these missteps in the years since the controversy.
In the future, Oberg will release a Sporty & Rich coffee book and has his sights set on opening a store.
“It’s important to have a real-life connection point for people to discover the world and lifestyle of the brand,” he said. “You can only connect with so many people online. Online will still be a major focus, but I think it will be good to create maybe a bigger and stronger sense of community, so a store helps with that.”
Source: wwd.com