Luxury Briefing: Inside Orlebar Brown’s big US expansion plans

The bulk of that U.S. expansion will be through physical retail. Orlebar Brown is planning to open 10 stores in the U.S. this year, in Montecito and Newport Beach in California, Boca Raton in Florida, and Belmont Village in New York, among other locations. The first of that flurry of new locations is the Montecito store, opening March 1. The new stores represent a 57% increase in the 14-year-old brand’s physical retail presence in the U.S. Orlebar Brown opened its first store in London in 2012. It now has nearly 40 stores across Europe and the U.S., plus stores in Australia, the UAE and various beach towns in the Caribbean.

For Trevor Hardy, Orlebar Brown’s CMO, the decision to focus on retail is an obvious one.

“During COVID, online was going through a boom,” he said. “But for men and for premium luxury brands, with customer acquisition costs being so high, online isn’t quite as effective anymore for discovery and for shopping.”

Physical retail makes up around 40% of Orlebar Brown’s revenue, which was more than $30 million in 2019 according to estimates at the time of the sale to Chanel. Chanel’s last reported revenue figures for the year 2022 were north of $17 billion, nearly $6 billion of which was pure profit. Chanel does not break out its revenue reporting between subsidiary brands and a representative for the company declined to share Orlebar Brown’s recent revenue figures.

Hardy said the main consideration for where the brand places its physical stores has more to do with the destination being a fit rather than simply targeting the biggest urban centers. Smaller cities in beachy or tropical vacation spots, like Montecito, are a priority. Meanwhile, cities like Chicago and Austin, despite being large shopping hubs, are not a good fit for Orlebar Brown’s resort-focused apparel.

The marketing strategy for the U.S. will focus primarily on top-of-funnel investments like creative campaigns, store openings and partnerships with influencers. With customer acquisition costs through platforms like Meta increasing, Hardy said top-of-funnel activations are easier to control. But the brand will continue to put money into performance marketing through Meta, which is “still generating decent returns,” Hardy said.

Swimwear makes up around 30% of the brand’s total revenue, but these days, it’s not the biggest selling item. Instead, shirts have become the top sales category for Orlebar Brown and are featured heavily in its spring campaign. “Bridgerton” star Jonathan Bailey was is the face of the campaign, which launched last month and puts the brand’s light linen shirts front and center. Other categories Orlebar Brown has launched in recent years include sunglasses and experiments with skin care.

But that doesn’t mean Orlebar Brown will keep pushing into new categories. Hardy said the philosophy has been to go deeper on the categories it has rather than dilute the brand by trying to do too much.

“We like to look at brands like Brunello Cucinelli and Zegna and we imagine that our brand is what their customers wear when they’re on vacation,” Hardy said. “We’re not trying to compete with Cucinelli. We’re trying to do what we do as best we can.”

But some of those categories are getting a revamp. Hardy said the brand has spent the last year working with a new partner for its sunglasses manufacturing and will debut new products with better construction in May. Similarly, after launching its first water shoe seven years ago, a reimagined footwear line made with better materials and manufactured in Italy is coming in the next month or two, he said.

One area where Hardy does want to expand the brand’s range is in its collaborations. In the past, it has collaborated most notably with the James Bond franchise, and also with hotels like the Beverly Hills Hotel and France’s Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc. Hardy characterized these collaborations as “well-behaved” — successful, but safe choices that don’t clash with the brand’s luxury travel-oriented aesthetic.

“They’re not really stretching the brand in any way,” Hardy said.

One ongoing collaboration with the 1980s pop band Wham! is more reflective of the adventurous spirit that Hardy said the brand is pushing for. Two unannounced collaborations — one with a women’s fashion brand and one with a luxury car company, both coming this year — will be more of a stretch.

Orlebar Brown’s is one of several U.K. brands turning their focus across the pond. In the last month alone, Glossy has spoken with British brands including Percival, Watchfinder and Nadine Merabi which are all planning big U.S. expansions and navigating the differences between the two markets. Percival’s CEO Chris Gove told Glossy earlier this month that U.S. customers are spending more than their British counterparts, but the cost of doing business in the states is also greater.

“In the U.S., the average order value is twice as high, but we have to charge 20% more to cover customs costs,” Gove said.

It’s a complicated time for those brands to turn their attention to the U.S., given issues like slowing luxury spending in the region, which was down 15% at the end of 2023.

But according to Hardy, such data points can sometimes be misleading. Regardless of temporary slowdowns, the U.S. is already Orlebar Brown’s biggest market, so he believes the expansion will pay off even if there are currently bumps in the American consumer economy.

“People are still shopping, and international travel is better than ever,” he said. “We’ve had more U.S. customers coming into our stores in France, Italy and Greece last year than we’ve ever had before. That’s a positive bellwether for us. The market may be flat for now, but there’s growth potential here with our core customer, and that’s what we’re leaning into.”