This is an episode of the Glossy Fashion Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the fashion industry. More from the series →
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On the week’s episode of the Glossy Podcast, Shannon Savage and Laura Low Ah Kee discuss how their long careers at Lululemon led to the launch of their now 6-year-old premium active swimwear brand, Left On Friday. Savage and Low Ah Kee originally bootstrapped the business, which has remained on a growth trajectory and is profitable. And they’re hopeful that their marketing plans for 2024 will fuel even greater brand growth. For starters, Left On Friday will have a strong presence at the Summer Olympics as the outfitter of the Team Canada Beach Volleyball team. Excerpts from the discussion, below, have been lightly edited for clarity.
A strategic year one
Savage: “Laura and I had both put our own money into this, and so we wanted to get it off the ground as quickly as possible, but also create world-class products. I think one of the biggest benefits of Laura and I becoming business partners was that we’ve brought with us so many resources from the tenure that we’ve had in our previous careers. We have everything from Laura’s business sense to speed-to-market [expertise] to trend [expertise] to mill contacts around the world — I know all the best factories. I also know how to create a tech pack and create a fit that has never existed. I can draft a pattern if I need to. So, with the sheer skills that came together, between the two of us, we were able to go so far so fast. We literally started concepting in March or April of 2017, and then by May of the next year, we had designed the brand, opened the website, produced everything and gone live. It was so fast. It was probably faster than most apparel concepts get off the ground. But we also really wanted to use our first year as, almost, a beta testing year. We didn’t want to go live with any PR in the beginning. We wanted to take it slow and make sure that the concept made sense: Was there traction on the concept? Can the factory actually produce it? Have we worked out all the kinks in the supply chain? Before stepping on the gas and going after growth, we needed to make sure that foundation was really set.”
Sales channel and market expansion
Savage: “Right now, we are at 80% U.S. [sales] and 20% Canadian, and we’re definitely [popular on] the coastlines: New York, L.A., Toronto and Vancouver. …”
Low Ah Kee: “Since day one, we knew the importance of trying on product and understanding fabric and fit. So we started online, as well as with wholesale. Wholesale was a marketing initiative for us and allowed us to direct customers who want to try on suits to try them on. And that worked extremely well for us to build our business. Today, we are predominantly DTC with some wholesale, and we are opening up summer stores — that’s a work in progress, but we’re really excited for those.
And then, at the end of last year, we launched in Australia through a partnership, which totally makes sense. … Every female there lives and breathes the lifestyle which we are solving for. At 5:30 in the morning, they’re running along the beach before they swim laps before they surf. So we’re really excited about Australia. And then we know that there have been a lot of requests for [us to sell in] Europe. We’re going to be in the spotlight at the Olympics. Literally that center court is under the Eiffel Tower. — it’s one of the hottest tickets around. Our players are phenomenal and totally stand a chance of winning a gold medal. … So we’re excited to see what comes of the Olympics and the awareness it brings to the brand.”
On fundraising
Savage: “Covid impacted so many brands in so many ways. There are so many brands that are not with us anymore because they couldn’t survive Covid. … Every online business had a huge boom — the Covid boom. So everybody was racing to keep up with sales. And at the same time, supply chains were all messed up. And so people couldn’t get their products, their cash flows got messed up, the whole thing was such a crazy time. So Laura and I did our best to get through it. Our business exploded during that time, which is amazing. We were so small as a brand and we could not believe the growth we were going through. When it actually came to a fundraising time, that was our approach to getting through the ripple effect that we felt from Covid: We had been trying to predict what inventory we needed, we predicted a lot, it came in late — we needed funds to pay for that. But at the same time, we’re a seasonal business. So I think we approached it very well. It was a very grueling process, very stressful. And it was also at a time when there was a downturn in the market. And so getting people to even talk to you and pay attention [was a challenge]. Sometimes [the process] was us trying to explain to a bunch of men why a swimsuit is an amazing thing, when they’ve never had to go through that process of being a woman trying to find apparel that makes them feel amazing. We were just trying to prove how amazing our concept was. We were profitable, and we felt like we had a lot to offer. But the actual fundraising process was hard.”
