The 5-year-old British cool-girl brand Aligne has become a darling of the U.K. high street in the last two years. Under new CEO Ginny Seymour, who took the reins of the brand in 2022, Aligne has shifted from a wholesale focus to a DTC model and grown its revenue over 600%.
Now, Seymour told Glossy that 2025 is the year the brand gets big in the U.S. Up until now, its primary market has been in the U.K., but after organic growth on platforms like Shopbop and Shopify led to an explosion in U.S. sales, Aligne now has a game plan for how it will make the U.S. the centerpiece of its growth plan.
“Last week, our U.S. sales surpassed our U.K. sales,” Seymour said. “It doesn’t happen every week, but the two markets are flipping back and forth for us. The amount of growth and excitement we’ve seen from the U.S. market has convinced us that this is the time.” U.S. sales at the brand now make up around 35% of its total revenue.
Aligne’s U.S. plans have included a press day held in late 2024 that led to coverage in publications like Refinery29. In April, Aligne will host its first pop-up, in New York City’s Soho neighborhood. Manhattan has seen a significant increase in foot traffic since the successful implementation of congestion pricing late last year, including a 20% spike in foot traffic in Soho. Notably, the Trump administration is currently attempting to kill congestion pricing by revoking federal approval.
“We missed the window to do a pop-up in the U.K.,” Seymour said. “The audience there expects us to do a permanent store now. The U.K. is a really important market to us but the people there think we’re bigger than we are. But a pop-up in New York feels like the perfect way to get in touch with the American consumer.” Seymour declined to share the company’s revenue.
Seymour said she views the Soho pop-up primarily as a customer acquisition tool, taking advantage of Aligne’s existing presence in the country and giving the team some much-needed insight into how the American customer shops and what styles they prefer.
Luckily, most of the styles that are most popular in the U.S. are made in Europe, where 70% of Aligne’s production happens. That means those products are unlikely to be directly affected by any potential tariffs. A new warehouse opening in New York in May will also help Aligne distribute orders more efficiently to American customers.
Lastly, Seymour said she hopes to build up an office and team in the states over the next year, as well. Right now, Aligne’s employees are all based in London, save for a single American-based consultant recently hired. But Seymour said there’s no replacement for having people on the ground in an important market.
“Having worked in three different countries myself, you can’t beat the value of having a local approach to a market,” she said. “The pop-up will help us build that presence. Our plans for the U.S. aren’t limited to the East Coast.”
Seymour said she sees Aligne as part of a wave of British high-street brands that are expanding further into the U.S. this year. Many of these brands have experienced organic U.S. growth on international platforms like Shopify and are now trying to capitalize.
Rixo, a 9-year-old contemporary of Aligne, opened a Soho pop-up last year in April. By August, that store had become a permanent fixture. Me + Em, another British brand that has dressed celebrities like Margot Robbie and Amal Clooney, just opened its fourth U.S. store in Dallas in December. If Only If, another British brand, hasn’t opened any stores in the U.S. yet but did see its U.S. sales grow by 500% last year.
“There’s an amazing community of female-led DTC fashion brands that are shaping the high street in the U.K.,” Seymour said. “I’m 10 years behind a lot of them in many ways. Aligne is kind of the baby sister of this community. But we’re all sort of tackling the U.S. together.”
