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Jane Herman, the founder and designer of women’s denim label The Only Jane, launched her popular Substack Jane On Jeans one year ago, where she reviews other brands and shares styling tips. It wasn’t until April that she used the forum to post about her own brand, when she launched her Georgia Jeans.
“I wanted to give my readers a great option for a jean,” she says. “Why not one I made?”
Herman’s not the only designer catching on to the customer acquisition potential of the personal site, blog and email newsletter platform. In recent years, it has taken off among the fashion crowd — with many an ex-magazine editor starting up their own newsletters to reach readers directly — in a way that resembles the pre-social media fashion blogging heyday. On the brand side, Tory Burch has been an early adopter (much like she was early to start a blog), and beauty experts like Bobbi Brown have already jumped on the wave.
“Fashion founders and designers started showing up in bigger numbers last year,” says Christina Loff, head of lifestyle partnerships at Substack. The uptick in brand founders may go beyond the correlation of Substack’s overall growth. The appeal of having a direct line to your customers is particularly prevalent in the sea of social media campaigns. “People are tired of being marketed to, and Substack is a respite from all the promotions and ads we’re constantly bombarded with,” says Loff.
Loff says the platform has seen total subscriptions in the fashion and beauty category rise 80 per cent year-on-year. With more than three million paid subscriptions on Substack and more than 35 million active subscribers, she says the “critical mass” of engaged readers and shoppers appeals to designers looking to reach new audiences.
To Herman, Substack is filling the gaping hole of specialised retail stores like her father’s famous Los Angeles boutique, Ron Herman, which shut its doors in 2023. “People ask me for one place to go to try on all the best jeans and I don’t know where to tell them. Retail stores are closing,” she says. “But shopping on Substack is similar to what the retail experience has historically been, with buyers showing you all the best clothes from different brands and then some people that worked at the store would also make things too.”
This is how she approaches posting about her brand within her Substack — similar to how her mom once sold jackets she designed in her father’s store. Herman never wants Jane On Jeans to feel like a marketing tool. “It’s an expression of my continued love for jeans,” she says. She regularly shares affiliate links for readers to shop the items she posts.
Since launching in 2017, Substack has built a reputation around authenticity and user-generated recommendations. It’s become a platform where influencers, editors and stylists take their own (non-sponsored) recommendations, and aspiring writers publish personal and informal articles that traditional media outlets wouldn’t.
Meg Strachan, founder and CEO of jewellery brand Dorsey, launched her What I Put On Today Substack in January 2023. A little over a year later, she has accumulated over 13,000 subscribers. “People would DM me on Instagram asking what I was wearing and it became hard to share links, and Instagram stories expire in 24 hours,” she says. “I realised a link [on Substack] would stay live for an indefinite period.”
Strachan exclusively wears her own jewellery designs in each outfit breakdown, but always features multiple other clothing brands. While she shares elements about her role running the company, she doesn’t outright promote her brand on the platform. “I wanted to keep the brand separate,” she says. “If a Substack starts to feel like it’s pushing too much product, there’s an issue.”
The need to get personal
As people personally select who they subscribe to on the platform (unlike the usual appearance of sponsored posts), venturing into the territory of email marketing may land you in the spam folder. Instead, Strachan says, people are looking for a peek behind the scenes. “I’ve never gone on Instagram and felt better about myself, but on Substack, it’s interesting to deep dive into people’s lives,” she says. “It’s more about the reality of the lives of the people you’re following.”
Call it ‘influencer fatigue’ or social media burnout, the rise of fashion Substack is a clear indication that people are seeking more depth from their online interactions. Viv Chen, the fashion writer behind The Molehill Substack, says she’s witnessed a “real appetite” for longer-form content since joining in 2021.
“People miss the 2010s era of personal blogs,” Chen says. “We’re so saturated with photos and videos that going back to writing has the perception of being more authentic.” This means the designers and brand founders who are willing to get more personal will go further on the platform. “There will always be an interest in compelling authentic stories, about how someone made mistakes in their career or giving an inside scope on an industry that appears so glamorous on the surface,” says Chen.
For designers or brand founders willing to “go there”, Substack offers something that no social platform currently does: the opportunity to own access to your followers beyond the platform by owning your email list. Between the potential TikTok ban in the US and worldwide news bans from Meta, this potential is undeniable. Yet the long-form nature of Substack means any copy-and-paste social marketing strategies just won’t cut it.
To Clare Vivier, founder and creative director of handbag and accessories brand Clare V, that’s what’s exciting about the platform. “I started with a blog and felt very reminiscent of the old days when I saw that there was this way that we could communicate a bit more in depth,” she says. Vivier launched her Substack last month, after a conversation with Strachan. She plans on sharing her journey as a business person with her followers, as well as her outfit breakdowns. Luckily, that’s exactly the type of content people want from brand founders on the platform.
“It will be good for the brand and it’s also just another way that I can express myself,” she says. “I live, eat and breathe this brand, so it will be authentic no matter what happens.”
Correction: Corrects a quote from Herman on specialty stores for clarity. (15 May 2024)
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