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Not unlike the logic of “tomato girl” summer, which advocates dressing for the summer holiday you wish you were on, Asta Resort founder Helena Ammitzboell sees the brand and its pieces as a vacation in and of itself. “It’s resort as in this fantasy place, which summer is all about,” she says. Now, the brand is gearing up for growth, projecting revenues of $10 million-plus in 2024.
Ammitzboell founded Asta in 2021 with a grounding in resort garments, inspired by her own upbringing across Australian and Danish summers (the brand is named after her Danish cousin). Boosted by a heavy gifting strategy to Scandinavian influencers in particular, this past summer, the brand made the rounds on TikTok. Videos of influencers and fans across Europe donning its sequinned Natalia dress in black, yellow or pink coloured users’ For You pages, driving shoppers and retail buyers to seek out the brand. “I’d open TikTok and the first 10 videos would be Asta,” Ammitzboell says. “Our team group chat was like, what is going on with this dress?”
For most of the world, summer only lasts so long. Asta Resort may have begun with sundresses and bikinis, but Ammitzboell is thinking bigger. “You can do so much with resort,” she says. “Resort just means pieces to wear to special times, whether you’re travelling or just looking forward to something,” she says. For Ammitzboell, this has, so far, meant summerwear. But she doesn’t rule out offerings for the opposite climate down the line. “If that means doing a ski resort collection, I’m open to that,” she says.
To start, Asta is teaming up with CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist Conley Averett on a knitwear collection for SS24, using yarn sourced by the duo in Italy. It will be produced in Portugal.
Ammitzboell’s expansive definition of resort aligns with her plans for Asta. “I was never interested in targeting just the Australian market,” she says of the brand’s initial December 2021 boom down under. “I always had the intention of spreading out internationally, because I knew what different markets wanted.” Australia, she says, was the first step. Earlier this year she moved to Los Angeles (along with Asta’s headquarters and logistics centre), hired ex-Ralph Lauren and Khaite execs, and is developing the pop-up and wholesale strategy in a bid to reach more consumers, all while juggling a sharp uptick in orders that’s made inventory upkeep tricky. “Everything fell into place when we got [to LA],” Ammitzboell says. Models Hailey Bieber and Bella Hadid donned Asta pieces, and Kith and Revolve became the brand’s first stockists.
Demand spikes
Ammitzboell built the brand slowly in the lead up to Asta’s recent boom. While studying at Sydney’s University of New South Wales (UNSW), she started making tiny collections — always with a destination in mind. “I found whatever suppliers I could find by Googling and looking at Alibaba and talking to people asking for direction,” she says. “It was a lot of elbow grease.” She then built a website and began gifting pieces to contacts with high social media reach.
A boost in awareness thanks to TikTok virality has been a blessing and a curse. Asta Resort is struggling to keep up with an influx of orders after its designs made the rounds on social media this summer. “It’s really bad right now,” Ammitzboell says candidly ahead of a big restock scheduled four days after the interview. The brand’s entire Sardinia collection is sold out. “The virality of [the items] never ceases to amaze us,” Ammitzboell says. “We definitely don’t sell out so fast intentionally.”
It’s not just direct-to-consumer shoppers who discovered the brand via TikTok — Revolve came across Asta Resort on the app when its yellow Natalia dress went viral, says chief merchandising officer Lauren Yerkes.
This summer, Asta launched with Kith and Revolve after much consideration. “I didn’t know if we wanted to do it. I knew that would be a big uplift in planning and production — we were so small still when Revolve happened,” says Ammitzboell. In hindsight, it was the nudge she needed to develop the brand’s business infrastructure. “Putting collections together for a drop date was challenging enough. I knew if we were going to do wholesale properly that we would have to get our shit together.”
It’s also what pushed the brand to transition its production calendar to align with the official fashion calendar. “Yes, it’s nice to do your own thing and stay off-calendar. But at the end of the day, the cash flow for wholesale doesn’t work like that. It’s very difficult to work with wholesale partners if you are off-calendar.”
Both Revolve and Kith were willing to buy in season at first, which was helpful for onboarding, Ammitzboell says. “Our customer looks to Revolve to discover new brands and shop fresh trends,” Revolve’s Yerkes says. “This collection still felt relevant and exciting, so we knew our customer had to have it.” Now that Asta has established relationships with both retailers — and has had time to put the planning in place for Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter — it’ll have new collections ready for advance order.
Asta has more, yet-to-be-disclosed wholesale partnerships lined up for 2024 — but it’s being selective. For one, Ammitzboell is careful about reaching targeted audiences. For another, it’s still ironing out its inventory pressures. Its plan is to restock less, and produce more of each style, the designer says. For now, the Asta Resort website has a built-in waitlist to ensure interested shoppers will be notified when an item is restocked. “We’ve just had to make sure that we have the proper infrastructure to cope with sell-outs,” Ammitzboell says.
When we speak, Ammitzboell has just visited the factory in Portugal where the Averett collaboration knits are being produced. “The pace of growth and production has got very fast very quickly,” Ammitzboell says. “We’re less than three years old.” Because of this quick growth, the designer is keen on visiting the factories (the other of which is in China) to make sure the garments align with the vision. “Lots of trips and lots of passport stamps,” she says with a laugh.
It’s with this hands-on, tried-and-true approach that the founder is eyeing further growth. Pop-ups are great market research, Ammitzboell says, and the brand has hosted them in Bondi Beach and LA. “It’s invaluable for a brand owner to meet a customer in their natural habitat, in different countries.” Next up is Miami, where Asta will pop up at The Standard for Art Basel in December and debut a new category (currently under wraps), a collection of towels and the collaboration with New York-based Averett.
Standalone stores are an option down the line, but for now, Asta is sticking to its pop-up and wholesale strategy. “We’re really enjoying doing pop-ups,” Ammitzboell says. “It makes so much financial sense, and also brand sense. We’ve created this travelling pop-up — the brand is touring around the world.”
“We’re growing fast, but I feel like you have to grow fast in today’s world,” Ammitzboell says. “In today’s [post-lockdown] world, people are travelling and working from anywhere. So, the area we’re playing in feels never-ending.”
Key takeaway: Asta Resort was founded as a resortwear brand, leaning into summer staples designed to be worn on holiday — or with escape in mind. Now, founder Helena Ammitzboell is looking to expand the definition of this category beyond summer items as the brand navigates how to drive growth spurred by virality. A sharp uptick in orders means rethinking operations behind the scenes, and a growth strategy that involves travelling pop-ups; select wholesale partnerships and a knitwear collaboration, all while remaining focused on managing its DTC offering.
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