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Saint Art started out producing 10 pairs of its Nessa trousers at a time, a slouchy style that began as a khaki chino, unsure if they’d be a hit. Now a bestseller, the trousers also come in denim and are made in 1,000-piece batches with a waitlist that sits at around 400.
From there, Saint Art’s model was born. The New York-based brand, founded by CEO Caroline Gogolak in 2020, follows a test-and-react strategy in order to move quickly and only go all in on products once they’ve captured a positive response. Under the creative direction of Donald Oliver, it’s since expanded to a collection of basics including the Talia midi skirt at $195, the Isla waistcoat at $215 and the Myra crew neck sweater at $315. (Nessa trousers start at $235, hitting $405 for a sparkly version.) Products are first made in New York and Los Angeles in small runs; if they do well, they’re produced in larger quantities in Turkey and China.
It’s a play that makes Saint Art a fast, but not “fast fashion”, fashion brand, according to Gogolak.
“What product is going to win, and what are the things you might want to move on from?” she asks. The brand’s business model enables the founders to answer this question via trial and error — rather than making an educated, but still fallible, guess. Both industry veterans, the founders know the value in this confirmation. Gogolak founded activewear brand Carbon 38 prior to Saint Art, and Oliver is an alum of brands including Jason Wu, J Brand and Calvin Klein.
Getting a factory to agree to a small run is a challenge — and comes at a cost. Saint Art has found a workaround by operating in the factories’ sample rooms for the small batches. The cost per piece is still higher, Gogolak says, but it’s worthwhile to avoid the risk of unsold inventory. “[This] can be challenging to cash flow,” she says. It works because Saint Art is still relatively small scale, and its leadership plans to keep it that way. “We don’t want anything to feel junky or thrown in there,” Gogolak says. “We want the brand to feel considered.”
For Kimberly Lewis, founder of stockist Emerson Grace in Nashville, Saint Art’s mix of fashion-forward, good-quality pieces — at an affordable price point — was an easy yes. And it’s selling. “It has done extremely well for us,” she says.
It’s an attractive proposition for investors, too. In 2021, Saint Art raised $3 million from angel investors in an early stage VC funding round. And having almost doubled the business each year since inception (it’s grown 115 per cent year-on-year as of Q1 2024), Saint Art’s foundations are there. Based on its wholesale presence and growth, Saint Art’s revenue now sits around the sub-$10 million mark, according to an industry insider.
This year, the brand is building out its line of denim while also figuring out how to apply its test-and-react model to wholesale. Gogolak’s primary goal for 2024 is to reach profitability.
Unit economics
Fabric is also, in part, how the brand keeps its prices (ranging from $95 for a tank, to $925 for embellished bottoms) where they are. The majority of Saint Art’s revenue comes from a set few fabrics: charmeuse, fine-gauge merino, khaki twill, and of course, denim. Saint Art then iterates on the winners via its test drops.
“It’s a real business decision,” Gogolak says, rather than a sustainability play. That said, the pair are aware of — and embrace — the sustainable upsides. “You can create a dress in a very sustainable fabric,” she says. “But if you make too much of that dress, it doesn’t really matter that it’s in a sustainable fabric.”
For those that sell well early on, Saint Art is still careful about the units it orders. “It’s easy to be sitting on the raw materials that you can make it into something else – versus in the style of it sitting around for six months,” Gogolak says.
Speciality wholesale
Wholesale entered the picture in 2023, when Saint Art worked with Findings showrooms to place its collections in 123 speciality stores, including Dish in Oakland, Zoe in Princeton and Hadenreid in Tampa. Wholesale has since grown 40 per cent year-on-year, and now makes up 30 per cent of the business (relative to DTC’s 70 per cent).
It’s helped the brand grow revenues and margins, Gogolak adds, noting that the plan was never to remain direct-to-consumer. As of late last year, the founders felt they had enough data to see what sold well and, more importantly, consistently, to put through to wholesale.
The focus on speciality stores versus larger department store accounts was intentional, says Gogolak, because it keeps distribution tight and the feedback is more personal and tailored. Underlying the decision is an awareness of the increasingly unsteady wholesale landscape, as once-leading multi-brand e-tailers fall victim to a changing landscape.
“The main retailer landscape is not a revenue channel that I want to bank on every season,” she says. “So having a really strong speciality store base is super exciting for us. And these stores have a really engaged customer.”
Path to profitability
Gogolak’s number one learning from her Carbon 38 days? “Profitability is the most important thing.” Gogolak was president until 2017, during which time the brand transitioned from licensing apparel to designing in-house before leaving to join Soulcycle as VP of retail.
This means keeping things tight, with investment primarily going back into the product. Saint Art limits its marketing spend (under 10 per cent), leaning on numbers and data from sales rather than going after customers via new channels. Wholesale has helped push revenue growth, too.
Though they’ll always take a cautious approach — based on the business model they founded Saint Art upon — with a profitable base, there’ll be further room for experimentation, including expanding denim and rolling out new categories. Saint Art’s test-and-react model makes it easier to take risks, Oliver says. “It’s about the freedom of being able to do things that would normally be either moved out from the merchant point of view or not given the time of day. That’s been a part of what has enabled us to build really good product.”
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