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Everlane

Everlane is an e-commerce fashion retailer, which upholds a mission of radical transparency, aiming to educate consumers on the manufacturing and pricing structure of clothing. The company designs, manufactures and sells high-quality retail items at a low retail markup, a process, which is broken down step by step on their website. Everlane's slogan, "Modern Basics, Radical Transparency", encourages consumers to know their factories, know their costs, and always ask why.

On the company website, Everlane claims to "work with the best factories around the world–the very same ones that produce your favorite designer labels". The company is a popular example of non-store retailing, a concept which has become increasingly favourable in recent years. Currently, Everlane is headquartered in San Francisco.

= History =

In 2010, Michael Preysman, Founder and CEO of Everlane, left his job in venture capital to begin his own business. Preysman had worked in venture capital for over five years as an Analyst at Integral Capital Partners, an Analyst at Merrill Lynch, and as an Investment Associate at Elevation Partners. According to Preysman, "three years in, I realized for me that being an investor and merely watching how things are done wasn't what I wanted to do in life. I really loved building things."

Preysman launched Everlane in November 2011, after picking up from New York and moving across the country to San Francisco—home to Silicon Valley. In an interview with fashion website Style.com, he explains his decision: "The company was started in San Francisco. I moved there from New York, and I think the reason we are in SF is the idea of just being outside of the fashion craze in NYC. It allows us to think: What is going to make a really great online experience? When you are in NYC, you think mostly about what is going to make a really great store experience. A lot of the e-comm stores are opening up [brick-and-mortar] stores. But for us, it’s about making the online experience better than off-line. It changes the dynamic of the company long-term." In 2013, the company hired Petra Langerova, former design director at Gap Inc., to become to its first head of design. At just 21 years old, Langerova had already packed up from her native Slovakia and moved to New York after falling in love with the city during a study abroad trip. Upon graduating from Parsons The New School for Design, Langerova accepted a design position at Tommy Hilfiger, working primarily on their runway collections. After five years, in 2007, Langerova left Tommy Hilfiger in order to pursue a design position for J.Crew, citing CEO Mickey Drexler as one of her biggest mentors in the industry. Her final position before moving to Everlane was design director at Gap Inc., where Langerova' passions for design began to wane: "There was a lot of financial pressure, a lot of responsibility to generate revenue, always a lot of calculating. It was hard to be creative, because in my head I'm counting all the zeroes when designing. That was my role, more larger scale thinking about the entire assortment and seasonality, how much faster we should be moving a category, should we have certain things on a floor, basically what are your winners and how is the line tiered so that everything has a fair chance. I was craving to do something more creative. I had a fair estimate of what my future would be if I should continue along my path, progressing up an imaginary ladder, becoming less and less in touch with what my passion really is or why I even started. This was not why I wanted to do fashion."

Despite the limited number of staff and Preysman's complete lack of a fashion background, Everlane's sales continued to rise, growing 200 percent from 2013 to 2014.

= Factories =

Everlane encourages customers to educate themselves on the factories producing its clothes, by making a profile for each factory available on their website. On their site, the company states that they work with eighteen different factories spread across three different continents: North America, Europe and Asia. Within North America, there are five factories: a t-shirt factory in Long Beach, a t-shirt and sweatshirt factory in Los Angeles, a belt factory in San Francisco, a canvas tote factory in El Paso, and the company's distribution centre in Denver. Within Europe, there are four factories: a leather bag factory in Vicenza, a shoe factory in Brescia, a scarf factory in Hawick, and a leather accessories factory in Ubrique. Lastly, in Asia, there are nine factories: a knit factory in Ho Chi Minh City, a silk and shirt factory in Hangzhou, an outerwear factory in Yantian, and six various other factories all found in Dongguan.

The factory profiles published on the company website provide the year the factory was established, the country in which the factory is located, and the exact product(s) and/or material(s) in which the factories produce. Information about the factories themselves and their ownership are also provided for consumers.

= Products =

Originally, Everlane's product focus was on targeting a primarily male audience due to the fact that the company's leadership consisted largely of male executives. However, upon Langerova's arrival in 2011, the company's product line was re-visioned, with focus shifting to a primarily female audience. Currently, products offered by Everlane include both apparel and accessories.

Everlane's product designs are well-recognized for their minimalist aesthetic. The company focuses on offering a well-curated collection of simple and clean products that are reflective of their transparent business model. Although Everlane offers an extremely large variety of women's apparel and accessories, its silk, cashmere, and leather products are particularly popular. In comparison to the women's products, the men's section offers slightly less product variation. Specifically, there are currently no shoes or pants available for sale.

In early 2015, Everlane introduced "Everlane Now NYC", a service offering one-hour delivery for a specific list of products anywhere within New York City. The service is available Monday to Friday between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., free for orders of more than two items.

= Press =

Everlane was featured in The Huffington Post in March of 2015, after it was discovered that their latest product debut–slim and slouchy trousers–boasted a 12,000 person waitlist. Head of design, Petra Langerova, explained that "[w]hile pants are a very technical item to design, it is the few little details that make a difference—like getting just the right length or little side seam slits. [Everlane] chose to use a high quality wool with some stretch in it, making sure that the pants are as wearable and comfortable as possible."

In October 2014, Style.com, a popular digital destination within the fashion industry, covered Everlane's journey to success. Titled "How Everlane Succeeded in Fashion by Acting Like a Tech Company", the article discusses Everlane's brilliantly unusual business strategy as a fashion retailer founded by an individual with zero background in the fashion industry.

The company has received positive publicity worldwide from major media sources such as Los Angeles Times, Fashionista.com, Inc. (magazine), Interview (magazine), and Business Insider.

= References =