Everlane was once part of a group of retailers that claimed to do things differently — cut out the middlemen by selling only direct to consumer, getting rid of markups. Part of the model meant cutting the role of celebrity brand ambassadors: the expensive deals only ate into margins, and top-quality, best-price clothing didn’t need a celebrity frontman to sell the goods anyway. The products would simply speak for themselves.
That era’s over. For proof, look to Everlane’s new ambassador: Icelandic singer Laufey, who is the face of the brand’s autumn collection. The decision to sign its first celebrity ambassador came as part of a broader brand reboot, led by CEO Alfred Chang, an ex-Pacsun and Fear of God exec who joined last autumn to reignite the spark that Everlane had started to lose in the last few years.
“Everlane’s voice went quiet post-Covid, as we focused on profitability and on other things that DTC companies need to do,” says Chang. “There’s full recognition that we need to have a voice again out there, a strong voice, and that’s where these opportunities and partnerships can help.”
Profitability wasn’t a priority for DTC brands in the early days, flush with venture capital and focused only on growth at all costs. Money was poured into customer acquisition via performance marketing across Instagram, rather than traditional splashy magazine spreads and out-of-home ads. But as those gears for growth ground to a halt, and the money dried up, the strategy had to change. Everlane founder Michael Preysman stepped down from the CEO role in 2021 and was replaced by Andrea O’Donnell. The brand became profitable in 2023, with sales estimated at around $200 million. Now, Chang is in charge of blending Everlane’s two eras: rocket-fuelled relevance with a balance that’s not in the red.
Everlane isn’t alone in this journey. Other grown-up industry disruptors have flipped backwards in retail’s original playbook to build more sustainable business models. Glossier now sells in Sephora, and in 2022, signed Olivia Rodrigo as its first celebrity ambassador. Everlane began selling in Nordstrom as far back as 2017. But it’s not as easy as pulling reliable levers. Everlane’s competition has only increased in recent years, as the very brands it originally set out to disrupt, like Gap and J.Crew, make comebacks and companies like Quince, which also claims to cut out the middleman by selling white-label items direct from factories, take off.
Chang’s biggest task at Everlane is renewing its relevance.
“What was very important was to establish Everlane’s clear brand vision and positioning. And that to me was always going to be priority one going forward,” says Chang. “Any brand that’s existed for more than a decade has a lot of decisions now to make in terms of, ‘What’s next for this brand? Is it going to be different? Is it going to be the same? Is it going to be an evolution or a revolution?’ The first task was to establish our vision and position for the brand and then begin to work quickly on really sound execution against it.”
That position ended up not being revolutionary, as Chang puts it. Everlane traded its original slogan, “radical transparency” for “clean luxury”, which Chang says speaks more clearly to today’s consumer. “It’s built on the same trust, around a product being made in better and cleaner factories. But it’s more relevant to a consumer beyond just the better impact it has on the environment.”
Everlane’s known for its casual basics — a space that has become increasingly commodified. The new Everlane will still stick to a mostly minimal aesthetic (the very idea of “clean” luxury evokes “quiet” luxury) but with a heightened design approach that Chang hopes will differentiate the brand from the crowded basics landscape while still feeling classic and timeless, which Chang says is key to Everlane’s ethos.
Everlane hopes that 26-year-old Laufey will help translate this new direction to an audience that straddles both the brand’s existing base — mostly millennials — as well as Gen Z, as Chang notes they are invested in sustainability practices and quality materials and are also acquiring more spending power. He’ll be watching for both engagement and noise, as well as sell-through as success markers for the campaign as the autumn collection goes live. And he says the brand plans to work with more celebrities in the future to generate more noise. Right now, it feels like a bidding war to get the most powerful faces in your brand’s camp — recent successes at Gap, with its viral Katseye campaign, and even American Eagle, where, despite controversy, its Sydney Sweeney ads proved a success. Now Everlane is in the mix.
“This is our next chapter in our journey and I think what’s coming out is a great first step,” says Chang.
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