EXCLUSIVE: Inside the First Good American Store With Khloé Kardashian and Emma Grede
LOS ANGELES — “I feel like I could cry,” said Emma Grede, standing in front of the first Good American store, now open at Westfield Century City Mall.
“It’s been such a long time coming,” said Khloé Kardashian in the moments after “The Kardashians” crew finished taping in the corner space.
More from WWD
The Los Angeles-based, digital-first denim brand founded in 2016 by Kardashian and Grede, which famously racked up $1 million in sales in its first hour, has brought its trademark “radical size inclusivity” to brick-and-mortar, with a denim bar that guarantees sizes 00 to plus 32 will always be on the shelf, all-size mannequins, and fitting rooms that are 80 percent larger than average — and allow for size requests and checkout via touch screen.
“It’s everything we’ve done to champion inclusivity in a real-life environment,” said Grede, the brand’s chief executive officer, touring WWD around the store, starting with the denim bar. “We’re never going to say we do that in size 18, but you have to buy it online. It’s like, ‘I don’t matter enough to carry it in store?’ We have got it right here.”
“We’ve always prided ourselves on saying we’re a brand for our fans. What I mean by that is we take people’s commentary to heart, we always are reading what people are saying, which is a gift and a curse….But that’s how we created the size 15, because we heard there was a need for that. And if we weren’t paying attention to the return rates and customer feedback, we wouldn’t know,” said Kardashian, wearing custom Good American shredded and faded jeans that could make it into the line soon, and a bra top showing off her chiseled abs. “The store gives us more of an opportunity to be down and dirty with the consumer in person. Which again is a gift and a curse, but you have to listen and if you hear enough of it, it’s probably time to make a change.”
Good American racked up $200 million in sales in 2022, up 30 percent year-over-year. The brand was planning to open retail just before COVID-19 hit, and came close to signing a lease on Melrose Avenue, but the space was scooped up by Amazon. Grede eventually landed on a 3,000-square-foot spot at the outdoor shopping mall, adjacent to Lego, near American Girl, and across from Levi’s and Guess.
“We want to be where the moms are, and I’ve got my competition right in my face. Bring it on!” said Grede, dressed in a denim miniskirt, denim shirt and Lucite heels.
Good American will open two more stores in November — at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, California, and at The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. “We’re scaling quickly, there will be a lot more stores opening next year,” said Grede.
Investors include Imaginary Ventures and Alliance Consumer Growth, and the brand has not taken on any additional funding to fuel retail growth.
Inside the L.A. store, the space is minimalist, with clothing racks and a cash desk that play on the idea of embracing curves, and flickering video screens with brand imagery that will change regularly.
“This is about product and shopping, and that was very purposeful….You can come in, speak to someone super knowledgeable who can find what you saw online or on our Instagram, get in and out,” said Grede.
Or not speak to anyone at all.
“What I’ve learned is that a lot of women of a certain size actually don’t want to say it,” she said, showing off the Crave Retail-powered touch screen capability in the dressing rooms. “We have tried to remove a lot of that shame, but it isn’t always the case.”
There are multiple mirrors for women to see themselves at all angles, a plush bench for friends, even a coffee ledge. “The idea is for women to be comfortable,” said Grede.
The store’s merchandise mix represents the brand’s core franchises.
“The things you really need to touch and feel — our weightless denim — you don’t understand that online. We’ve taken the opportunity to bring that in.…We have our Always Fits and Compression swim, our Bosswear collection, our Better Than Leather, our bodysuits,” Grede explained, noting that new drops will arrive weekly.
Good American has been relatively quiet lately, at least compared to Skims, which notched a $3.2 billion valuation and landed Kim Kardashian on the cover of Time magazine. (Interestingly, the two brands don’t share any suppliers, said Grede, a Skims founding partner, whose husband Jens Grede is Skims chief executive officer.)
“Our business has been on fire. We still had amazing growth during COVID[-19]. We gained a lot of customers and market share,” Grede said of Good American, which employs 120 people in its Culver City headquarters.
While Good American was founded on denim, from a unit perspective it’s now 50-50 denim and other categories, primarily fueled by the growth of swim.
What’s selling well for summer? The brand’s recent collaboration with Body Glove on nostalgic neon swimwear, for one.
“What Good American is known for is taking tricky categories — nobody’s like,’ oh, I can’t wait to go and try on swimsuits today’ — and innovating in fit and fabrication,” said Grede. “People also love Bosswear for great black pants. The bottoms category, it doesn’t matter if it’s sweats, leather pants, chinos, cords — it works for us.”
In terms of demographics, Good American over-indexes on moms. “But we have a spread.…We’re actually doing an event for our top L.A. VIP customers, and our top customer is a 72 year old and she has about 60 pairs of Good American jeans. She was a Day One customer on Oct. 17, 2016, and she is still a customer today,” said Grede.
Surprisingly, while the brand caters to a range of sizes, size 00 is the bestseller in denim, with sizes 6 to 18 representing the bulk of the business.
While Kardashian, who has 309 million Instagram followers, is still a major factor for Good American, Grede believes the brand has diversified its storytelling.
“I think that the family is still so incredibly watched, and their followings have exploded,” she said. “But we’re constantly finding new customers through traditional and influencer talent. We look at the store and our wholesale partners as ways to find new customers. So we’re doing all sorts of things.”
The breakdown of wholesale and direct-to-consumer sales is 65 percent and 35 percent, with Good American selling to Nordstrom, Saks, Bloomingdale’s, Anthropologie and H&M, among others.
“We’ve always wanted to be omnichannel,” said Grede. “And the reason for retail is no one can sell our jeans like us. The sales associates have been in our office for a month, they understand the culture, and we’ve trained them to think about body types, to try to help people get out of their comfort zones in denim.”
Good American still has a lot of room to grow internationally; it’s just 15 percent of the business. “We have great retailers from Selfridges to H&M, but we’ve never put a penny in international advertising,” said Grede.
However, the priority is retail growth in the U.S.
“The look of the stores really will depend on the retail location. In Vegas, it’s going to be much heavier on dresses and swim. But for us to live up to the promise, what’s important is the fit room experience. And that I won’t sacrifice,” said Grede.
While many in the industry are feeling cautious about the back half of 2023, she is bullish.
“Good American is a very gift-y purchase. And holiday dressing is massive, the sequins and leather. And that’s when optionality reduces for certain sizes. T-shirts, shorts and swimwear, there are people who do that. If you try to get a $250 party dress, or a suit with sparkles, that’s harder to find. So seasonality means our business gets big in Q3 and Q4.”
Grede has been passionate about diversity and inclusion in the fashion industry, and is the chair of the 15 Percent Pledge. “Any conversations that are difficult to have are easier to shelve than get in front of. But the good news about Good American is it’s run by a Black woman,” she said. “I never had to make a big proclamation about diversity, equity and inclusion….Fashion as a whole is embarrassingly behind…it’s one of the reasons why I’m chairwoman and the pledge is there because brands need to be held accountable.
“There’s so much work to do, but that’s why a store like this is really important because if you have a lot of different people at the table making decisions about more customers than a traditional narrow set, you’re going to grow a business way quicker. Everything I’ve been involved with is a living, breathing example of that. We’re talking about billions of dollars in value to these brands.”
Strangely, some online commenters have balked at the claim that Good American is a Black-owned business.
“I’ve definitely seen that,” said Grede. “I think it comes down to the fact that Good American is a partnership between a Black woman and a white woman. Of course, Khloé is immensely famous, but I think it’s clear this is a partnership. I started this brand, I run this brand every single day, I’m in the office. And I’ve learned really well to drown out the noise,” she said.
“I understand a lot of people want to see Black-owned brands 100 percent Black-owned. But by the virtues of growth and investment, at some point dilution happens….I’ve seen a lot of backlash around Black founders who have sold to Unilever or Procter & Gamble. But that’s the point. At the end of the day, I care about wealth creation for Black people, employing Black people, and propelling Black people into positions of power and influence. So I feel really good about what I’m doing.”
Best of WWD
