True Classic Launches Women, Kids Lines

True Classic wants to be a family brand.

The six-year-old digitally native menswear startup, which rose to an $850 million valuation off the sales of its packs of men’s ringspun cotton T-shirts, is launching a line for women and girls. The inaugural collection, which features cropped zip-up hoodies, ribbed tanks and relaxed jogger pants, will launch on the brand’s site later this month.

The introduction of women and kidswear comes six months after True Classic received a strategic investment from 1686 Partners, a private equity firm founded by David Wertheimer, the son of Chanel co-owner Gérard Wertheimer, its first outside funding. That money was meant to help the brand expand its presence in retail and international markets as well as enter new categories. Its goal is to reach more than $1 billion in annual sales by 2035, True Classic’s chief executive, Ben Yahalom, told The Business of Fashion in April, up from more than $200 million now.

The womenswear line is a natural evolution for True Classic — 60 percent of the brand’s final quarter sales typically come from women shopping for the men in their lives, said Sawako Yamauchi-Tully, True Classic’s head of product design, production and sourcing. Similarly, the brand had the idea to expand into kids as they noticed teens already were wearing True Classic’s smallest available sizes, Yamauchi-Tully added.

Previous attempts at creating womenswear never got off the ground. Yamauchi-Tully said it was because the brand simply focussed on making use of leftover fabrics from its men’s line, not understanding what women wanted. Hiring Yamauchi-Tully, who previously designed womenswear at brands like Rock + Republic and had a childrenswear brand called Miki Miette that she closed to join True Classic, is meant to be a course correction. After joining the company in February, Yamauchi-Tully and her team sent out surveys and set up meetings with True Classic’s most engaged women shoppers to learn more about what they wanted most from the brand for themselves and their kids.

“We had one-on-one calls and literally had some women with their iPhones showing the inside of their closets,” Yamauchi-Tully said.

The women’s and kids lines build on True Classic’s ethos of unassuming basics in quality fabrics at prices in between premium brands like Alo Yoga and mass market retailers like Walmart or Target. The women’s jogger pants, for instance, are $60 as opposed to ones from Lululemon that retail for more than $100.

Perhaps the biggest opportunity for True Classic’s women’s and kidswear lines is that the brand’s customers can dress their entire family, Yamauchi-Tully said. Next month it’s releasing a holiday capsule collection where the same styles rendered in maroon and deep emerald will be available across men’s, women’s and kids.

True Classic expects its proposition of “becoming American families’ uniform” to have an immediate impact on its business. The women’s line, for one, should generate at least $10 million in its first year, according to Yahalom.

“Everyone can go get their more fashion items from other brands, but [True Classic will be] the core of the family outfit,” Yamauchi-Tully said.