When Ginny Seymour was a buyer at Saks and Holt Renfrew in the aughts, she saw brand after brand lose their identity to stay in the good graces of big retailers. It’s a mistake she was determined not to make as chief executive of Aligne, a London-based contemporary brand founded in 2020.
In the old days, the relationship between a brand and its stockists was often one-sided. Major retailers demanded exclusives, dictated product offerings and owned customer data. Emerging labels had little choice but to accept this dynamic: wholesale was the most effective, and often the only way to drive sales.
Even in the age of Shopify and Instagram, Aligne is still looking to wholesale as a crucial element in its US expansion plans, Seymour said. The brand is one of many young labels that still see multi-brand retailers as the key to scaling their businesses. But rather than being the first and only option, today department stores, boutiques and e-commerce sites are often added to the mix only after building a strong direct-to-consumer business.
“I’m not anti-wholesale,” Seymour said. “It’s the wholesale structure that makes it challenging for brands to learn their customer.”
Flaws and all, the right wholesale accounts can open doors to the best manufacturers and break through the noise of a saturated online shopping landscape. And in cities with high rents, someone else’s store might be the most economically feasible way to establish a real-world presence.
“You learn who you are as a brand in a multibrand environment,” said Bernard James, who launched his namesake jewellery line in 2020.
Below, BoF unpacks the best practices in starting wholesale, from knowing when you’re ready for it and landing that first account to choosing the right partners and mitigating the risks.
Preparing for Wholesale
In 2025, the savviest young brands are building their initial followings via e-commerce and social media. It’s a process that requires patience. But the insights from selling and communicating directly to customers are invaluable for understanding one’s value proposition and making improvements to the product offering.
Of course, not every successful brand today began with a direct-first approach. Some young designers land in specialty stores right out of fashion school. These accounts lead to bigger retailers and then perhaps a robust e-commerce business.
Put things up and see how it goes. If it’s successful and you work out the kinks of production, then you’ll be in a better position to offer that to a retailer down the road.
Today, before buyers take a risk on a new brand, they want to see a demonstrated point-of-view that’s consistent over multiple seasons. By embracing direct sales first, brands can learn about the market, tweak pricing strategies and end up in a stronger position overall when they finally catch the attention of a big retailer.
“For a small brand in today’s atmosphere, it has the wonderful ability to sell to the customer first, and I would suggest that,” said Mina Alyeshmerni, founder of Brooklyn boutique Maimoun. “Put things up and see how it goes. If it’s successful and you work out the kinks of production, then you’ll be in a better position to offer that to a retailer down the road.”
Even after entering wholesale, it’s prudent to keep the channel secondary to direct, experts suggest. James said he has no intention of growing wholesale beyond 15 percent of the business. When Seymour became CEO of Aligne, she scaled back wholesale in its native UK and more than doubled sales by focusing on direct. Seymour said she intends to keep wholesale as no more than 20 percent of its business in the long-term.
Taking the Plunge
Landing the first wholesale account isn’t easy.
Shoe designer Tina Lucasheva worked with two separate showrooms and hired an in-house sales representative before her label, Lucasheva, was picked up by a major retailer, Moda Operandi. There is an art and science behind catching the attention of wholesale buyers, and it’s all rooted in building relationships in the industry.
And though multi-brand retailers have lost much of their power to dictate terms, they can still be worth listening to.
When Marco Lebel launched his contemporary brand Theo the Label in 2023, he did so with a full line of womenswear products from casual ready-to-wear and outerwear to shoes and accessories. But after hearing feedback from his wholesale network about the needs of the market, he streamlined his offering to focus on wear-to-work apparel.
“It’s always product first,” said Lebel. “It’s key for a young brand that’s launching to really own who your customer is and build products that are relevant for the market, products that there’s a need for.
Both James and Lebel leveraged their experiences in the wholesale industry to garner their first accounts. James was the director of wholesale for Lanvin before launching his brand, while Lebel ran his own showroom for nine years before he founded Theo the Label.
For designers with no prior experience in wholesale, they can build their own networks from scratch by working with various stylists, photographers and simply being part of the creative industry.
“Work with friends on little dream projects and constantly insert yourself in the industry and meet as many people as you can,” said Alyeshmerni. “Those are stepping stones in building your network.”
Swedish brand Rose & Born, for instance, has been able to connect with American buyers by hosting trunk shows in various cities every year, without the support of a showroom.
Ultimately, the goal is to know someone who knows someone. “An introduction is always better than a cold email,” said James. “So ask around.”
Weigh the Pros and Cons of the Showroom
When a brand is ready for wholesale and generates enough cash flow to hire a professional, it has two options: bring someone in house as a sales director, or sign on to a multibrand showroom, which represents brands to buyers, fashion editors and stylists by showcasing them in a studio space.
But neither guarantee success. After working with a small indie showroom in Paris and a second bigger showroom, Lucasheva hired an in-house sales representative and is now considering working with a third showroom partner.
“Showrooms can be big and successful but sometimes the correct buyer won’t come because they’re extremely busy and they can’t go around Paris in a two-hour circle just to see you,” said Lucasheva. “You need to have people [in the showroom] who care what they sell and how they sell, and they need to care about you.”
[Buyers] come to see the brands, but also they come to see the sales agent.
From the buyers’ perspective, a large showroom can also feel like a chore because they’re obliged to see so many collections all at once, according to Sara Ouadnouni, founder of Belier, a consultancy that offers wholesale, marketing and business development services for emerging brands. For brands with considerable market awareness — such as her client Ives — it may be more fruitful to set up one-on-one appointments in a private space.
Still, having a partner with the right connections makes a difference. “[Buyers] come to see the brands, but also they come to see the sales agent,” said Ouadnouni.
Like Lucasheva, Aligne will likely opt for a hybrid model, hiring in-house wholesale experts but also exploring showrooms to help with international expansion. “We’ve taken a step to build our US team because we see the US as a huge part of our next chapter of growth, but we might choose to have a sales agency in Australia in the future because I don’t see us building a team out there.”
Choose the Right Partners
The challenges don’t end once a purchase order has been placed. Supporting wholesale accounts require an in-house staff to manage accounts payable and logistics, a revamped production schedule and continued customer support for buyers.
Relying on one or two large retailers can also be a financial risk. Stockists don’t always pay on time, and sometimes drastically change the size of their orders from season to season. This unpredictability can disrupt production or even leave brands unable to cover payroll and operations. Brands’ financial futures are also tied to that of their retail partners, for better or worse; labels collected cents on the dollar and struggled to get back their inventory after the failure of Barneys and Matchesfashion.
“There is a client I work with whose first order with a retailer was £300,000 ($378,000) and the second was £30,000,” said Ouadnouni. “This can destroy a business.”
Today, the power dynamic between brands and the stores that stock them is more equal, said Seymour. Brands have the ability now to ask for timely pay terms, including deposits for purchase orders upfront.
But brands must be vigilant about choosing the right partners. This means finding retailers that avoid frequent promotions and are happy to invest in marketing on behalf of their vendors.
“You have to make sure each and every partnership is intentional, so that when you launch with Harrods, they’ll help pay for a pop-up and when you want to work with Selfridges, they’ll host a dinner or an activation,” said Ouadnouni. “You want to capitalise on their communities and not just throw products in a space.”
While working with larger retailers and e-commerce platforms can be a major windfall, brands should not ignore the power of smaller specialty stores and regional boutiques. Stores like ESSX in New York and H.Lorenzo in Los Angeles have the influence to put an emerging brand on the map. Some can even match the volume of department stores. Lucasheva has one stockist, a boutique in Eastern Europe, that drives more sales for the brand than Moda Operandi.
“Getting into a store is half the battle, if not less,” said James. “It’s about continuing the relationships and making sure it’s mutually beneficial.”
