How Aussie fashion brand Silk Laundry aims to double its US business

When you look at the vibrant tones and silky silhouettes of Silk Laundry, it’s easy to see how this Australian-born apparel brand has captured the hearts of Hollywood  ‘It’ girls like Heidi Klum, Emily Ratajkowski and Priyanka Chopra. 

In June, Silk Laundry opened its first US-based bricks-and-mortar shop in Los Angeles, California. This marks the brand’s sixth store, with four locations across Australia and one shop in Montreal, Canada. 

A major factor behind the brand’s decision to enter the US retail scene through LA was the similar style that Australians and Californians share; namely, an affinity for easy-breezy, sleek yet colourful clothing pieces. 

On the store’s opening, Katie Kolodinski, Silk Laundry’s founder and creative director, commented, “Silk Laundry is quite ideal for LA’s weather. One of the reasons I started the brand was because I was really hot in Australia. Silk is light and breezy to wear. Los Angeles should see sales be more consistent across the year.”

Wade Anderson, Silk Laundry’s chief executive officer, predicts that the brand’s US market share is likely to shift from making up 25 per cent of the business to 40 per cent in the next three to five years. 

Silk Laundry’s builds upon strong American consumer base

According to Anderson, the brand’s US bricks-and-mortar expansion was all but inevitable. 

The CEO reported that Silk Laundry, which originally launched in 2015, has experienced 60-80 per cent annual growth in the US market over the past three years. 

Anderson explained that this has been largely driven by the brand’s wholesale and e-commerce channels. 

Even though Silk Laundry just launched its first stand-alone store in the US, the brand has been building up its presence in the US with a mixture of stockists and e-commerce partners including Neiman Marcus, Ssense, and several others. 

Rather than expanding quickly with every wholesale partner possible, Anderson explained that the brand strategically partners with a select few high-end retailers and boutique shops to maintain a sense of luxury and to create a more intimate connection with its customer base. 

“We just find that our connection with our customer is way more closely linked in a boutique rather than a chain,” Anderson stated. 

It’s clear that the brand is all about catering to the luxury fashion shopper from its approach to customer service to the sleek and stylish silhouette of its dresses and the luxurious, 100 per cent silk and Oeko-Tex-certified nature of its organic material.

In fact, the material of its garments is one of the primary factors behind the brand’s eagerness to open bricks-and-mortar shops. 

Silk Laundry’s advance into the US

While Silk Laundry has a fairly strong e-commerce presence, Anderson emphasised the importance of having an in-store presence for customers to experience the brand on a multi-sensorial level. 

He explained that when a consumer is searching for a silky slip dress, they can come across many products that look relatively similar in style but that deliver an entirely different effect in real life.

“The difference between our products versus a polyester product is that our product being [made of] 100 per cent organic materials, feels very, very different. The tactile experience that one gets when they walk into our location and [interact] with our store’s staff, offers a significant benefit to that customer, as opposed to just seeing us online.”

In addition to its locations in Montreal and Los Angeles, Anderson disclosed that Silk Laundry plans to launch several permanent bricks-and-mortar stores across North America in metropolitan cities like Miami and Chicago in the next two to three years. 

The CEO also revealed that the brand plans to host a pop-up in a major US city every six to 12 weeks over the next 12 to 18 months. 

Right now, Silk Laundry is hosting a pop-up shop in the fashionable New York City neighbourhood of Soho, which is running from September 12-30. This is the brand’s second pop-up in the Big Apple. 

In addition to building out its bricks-and-mortar presence in the US, Anderson noted that there are plans to expand into new product categories over the next few years, like menswear, jewelry and footwear.

As “we expand our brand value and reach, we will be introducing those products as well,” stated Anderson.

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