Adore Me is launching a Halloween capsule collection in partnership with the natural dye company Ever Dye, marking the first product release to come out of the brand’s year-long collaboration with the climate tech startup.
“Halloween is a key period for us, coming right before our peak period that usually starts around the holiday. We’ve invested a lot in our Halloween collection this year,” said Chang. The brand has launched a Costume Shop featuring Halloween lingerie and costumes, in addition to the Ever Dye collaboration.
The Ever Dye partnership is part of Adore Me’s Sustainability Accelerator launched in November. The initiative offers apparel startups access to Adore Me’s supply chain data and manufacturing processes as a real-world testing ground for sustainable practices. The focus of the Adore Me Sustainability Accelerator, which is structured as a 6-12-month program, isn’t on direct investment. Instead, it’s on facilitating partnerships that can drive the adoption of sustainable technologies.
“Equity funding and financing are not actually the roadblock these companies are facing,” Ranjan Roy, vp of strategy at Adore Me, told Modern Retail. “It’s the partnerships and the ability to show traction and scale and success that are the real challenge.”
Ever Dye, along with the measurement and reporting platform Carbonfact and the supply chain traceability platform Commonshare, are among the accelerator’s initial cohort. Since joining the program in November, Ever Dye has developed a bio-based pigment technology, which dyes garments four times faster with 10 times less energy, according to the company. Adore Me’s role in the partnership extends to facilitating connections with its manufacturers and acting as a Goldilocks-sized company — big enough to offer scale but not as complex as legacy brands.
In 2022, when it last reported revenue before its acquisition, Adore Me generated an estimated $250 million in profitable sales. In January 2023, Victoria’s Secret completed the acquisition of Adore Me for $400 million with a goal of leveraging its technology and digital-first approach to enhance Victoria’s Secret’s e-commerce business and customer experience. On its second-quarter 2024 earnings call, Victoria’s Secret reported that Adore Me experienced high-single-digit sales growth.
“This first capsule collection serves as a test to see how well Ever Dye’s technology performs in the real world,” said Christina Chang, vp of sustainability at Adore Me. “It’s small-scale now, but we’re looking to potentially roll this out across more categories.”
She added, “Good things take time to cultivate.”
The Halloween collection includes two pajama styles in orange and brown, a deliberate choice after months of testing to identify the colors that best adhere to fabric during Ever Dye’s dyeing process. The sets are being sold for $55, similar to the brand’s other sleepwear options, at $49-$59.
Halloween can be extremely wasteful, with fashion products and costumes thrown away after one use. A 2019 study by the U.K. charity Hubbub found that approximately 7 million costumes are discarded each year in the U.K. Given that the population of the U.S. is roughly five times larger, it’s estimated that around 35 million Halloween costumes are thrown away annually in the states.
Marketing for the collection will center on storytelling, emphasizing the environmental benefits of the dyeing technology used. KPIs will include customer feedback and social media impressions, and the marketing will be focused on the brand’s digital channels.
“The most important thing to get across is how much we’re innovating on these processes that often go overlooked in textile production,” said Chang. “We’re reducing water pollution and energy consumption, focusing on aspects that are critical for the customer’s health and well-being.” Production of the Ever Dye Halloween collection is expected to generate 2% less carbon emissions, but the long-term goal is a 75% reduction.
There is also a health component: Authorities found toxic chemicals in Shein’s underwear styles in May. Meanwhile, natural dyes are not toxic. Although an investment in sustainability may be out of reach for many brands, customers are caring more about the toxicity of their clothes and where materials are coming from. On TikTok, a video about the Shein toxic chemicals research has 2.1 million views.
“We’re launching this in a sleepwear collection because customers wear intimates close to their skin,” said Chang. “It’s important that we’re mindful about products that are not overtreated and are as natural as possible. … We don’t want to give a half solution to our customers.”
For both Ever Dye and Adore Me, the launch is less about immediate sales and more about laying the groundwork for scalable solutions in sustainable fashion.
The Halloween capsule was made available for purchase starting on October 1, 2024, on AdoreMe.com.
