After entrepreneur Mike Natenshon’s girlfriend threw out his favorite t-shirt, he based a model to create the right substitute.
Marine Layer launched in 2010 with one product: A multi-coloured striped t-shirt Natenshon hoped would evoke the sensation of Californian ease and luxury he bought from his previous favorite. Greater than a decade later, Marine Layer now sells a full vary of products like outerwear, sweaters and pants, however males’s t-shirts stay a serious gross sales driver. Prior to now two months, the corporate has launched two new T-shirts — a $54 tailor-made crewneck and a $48 light-weight tee in hemp cotton — and expects t-shirt gross sales to outpace the general enterprise’ year-over-year gross sales development in 2024.
Marine Layer is only one of a number of DTC attire labels that has constructed a worthwhile enterprise on the premise of promoting the right males’s t-shirt. Manufacturers like Buck Mason and True Traditional make tees that land someplace between Hanes’ five-for-$22 t-shirt packs and $100 plus luxurious tees from manufacturers like James Perse. They’ve been in a position to flip a primary merchandise consumers should purchase wherever right into a revenue driver by always updating their materials and silhouettes to enchantment to male consumers who’re carrying t-shirts extra typically and always scouring the web for a model that aligns with their aesthetic sensibilities.
The quantity of males’s t-shirts out there out there, which incorporates merchandise from DTC, luxurious and mass market manufacturers, grew 42 % within the final yr, and weekly searches for the merchandise have been up 12 % year-over-year this month, based on information agency Trendalytics. Due to that development, manufacturers which have invested of their males’s t-shirt providing see strong repeat buy charges, a crucial profit at a time when it’s costly and exhausting to seek out new consumers. At Marine Layer, the retention price for t-shirts is no less than 10 % larger than different classes, and the corporate generated greater than $10 million in earnings earlier than curiosity, taxes, depreciation and amortisation in 2023. The corporate’s gross sales grew 30 % year-over-year to over $150 million. True Traditional additionally noticed 40 % development final yr to $207 million in gross sales, and is in search of a $1 billion valuation.
“E-commerce has truly pushed the male procuring behaviour to be a lot stickier,” mentioned Mo Zhou, a enterprise companion at funding agency International Innovation Capital. “That’s brought on a whole lot of male consumers to be extra loyal to their particular manufacturers as soon as they discover them.”
These manufacturers have additionally discovered a path to worthwhile development at a time when lots of their DTC friends are in disaster mode. Activewear model Out of doors Voices shuttered all its retail shops final month and is reportedly planning to file for chapter. Sneaker vendor Allbirds’ gross sales dropped 15 % in 2023, and its inventory has traded at lower than $1 for over a yr; Nasdaq warned that if it may’t get its inventory value up inside six months, will probably be delisted.
These manufacturers’ success is not only about t-shirts, however moderately rooted in a capability to construct a neighborhood of ardent followers, put money into enhancing the standard of their tees and develop into classes that go with their hero product.
“Anyone can get a t-shirt made shortly. That’s not exhausting,” mentioned Anthony Choe, founding father of funding agency Provenance, an investor in Marine Layer. “The exhausting half is doing one thing completely different that folks care about and see.”
Cultivating Loyalists
Having a hero product that’s as accessible and pervasive as a t-shirt implies that manufacturers have to concentrate to the main points so as to stand out.
For Marine Layer that’s meant focussing on its multi-coloured stripes, whereas Buck Mason’s tees are recognized for his or her signature curved hem. To maintain clients coming again, these manufacturers often introduce new designs and experiment with materials.
Within the final 18 months Marine Layer has ramped up its rollout of tees in new supplies. Since its launch earlier this yr, the brand new pure hemp cotton tee, meant to look tender and worn-in, has seen gross sales volumes akin to Marine Layer’s bestselling $48 signature crew tees inside that very same interval.
“We’re obsessed in regards to the particulars of the t-shirt and actually attempt to flip over the completely different use instances,” Natenshon mentioned. “We’re all the time looking for new performance.”
At Buck Mason, the place t-shirt gross sales develop greater than 40 % yr over yr — larger than any of its different product classes — buyer retention comes solely from updating the materials and colors of widespread silhouettes like its unique $45 Supima cotton tee. The 11-year-old model used its earnings to buy a knitting mill in Mohnton, Pennsylvania in December 2022 to raised management how shortly it may replace and enhance its supplies. Buck Mason launched its “Toughknit tee” produced from American-grown Supima cotton jersey final September, and it’ll launch a line of indigo-coloured tees within the coming months, mentioned co-founder Sasha Koehn.
“For those who haven’t spent a whole lot of time refining that [original] merchandise, it’s not going to result in elevated gross sales,” mentioned Yasunobu Kyogoku, founding father of Innovation International Capital, which has invested in Marine Layer, Buck Mason and shoe maker Rothy’s.
Extra Than a T-shirt Model
Manufacturers on this sector can’t survive on simply promoting t-shirts alone. Whereas males’s t-shirts are a excessive buyer retention driver for Marine Layer, they at present solely account for 18 % of its total males’s product assortment, based on information analytics agency Edited. Essentially the most profitable start-ups have diversified their product providing to develop gross sales, discovering that t-shirts are sometimes a gateway to getting clients to purchase objects in different product classes.
“You might promote one t-shirt and in the event that they find it irresistible, that’s nice. They could purchase one other three. However if you happen to don’t have extra to supply, it doesn’t actually matter,” mentioned Innovation International Capital’s Kyogoku.
Since its launch, True Traditional has bought most of its tees in three, six and 9 packs starting from $60 to $130, which meant that some clients would go a full yr earlier than shopping for a brand new pack. In early 2023, the model began gifting objects from new classes, equivalent to its $20 boxer briefs, for purchasers that spend greater than $150 in a single transaction, to incentivise clients to purchase extra items in these classes, mentioned Ryan Bartlett, True Traditional’s co-founder and chief government.
When launching new items, some manufacturers guarantee these objects have a extra direct hyperlink to their hero product.
Marine Layer, for instance, makes use of fabrications which are much like what it makes use of for its t-shirts for different classes. In February, the corporate launched its $178 Saturday Breeze blazer and corresponding $128 chinos, developed in the same mix of cotton and spandex that’s present in its tailor-made crew neck tees. These have helped enhance gross sales of the tees and the blazer and chinos, which are sometimes purchased as a set. True Traditional, in the meantime, plans to launch a ladies’s t-shirt line within the ultimate quarter of the yr; it expects womenswear to make up no less than 40 % of gross sales within the coming years.
“Upon getting one product that the shopper loves and is enthusiastic about, then you may have the approval of the shopper to attempt to supply one thing else and the crucial factor there may be, it needs to be the proper factor,” Kyogoku mentioned. “For those who proceed to exceed their expectations … clients are all the time joyful.”
