Nike IDs The Cool Girls. Execution Pending
Finance: Decker Outdoor and Puma earnings
Building the Bench: Nike's New Dream Team
While CEO Elliott Hill continues to emphasize sport-rooted product, behind the scenes Nike is quietly building an all-star–worthy roster of female creatives better known for lifestyle than athletics. They include ex-Kim Kardashian stylist and designer Veneda Carter, whose Air Max Muse ($170) collaboration is just about sold out, and Tela D'Amore, co-founder of Who Decides War, who just released her second Jordan silhouette—an Air Jordan Women's Flight Court that's also nearly sold out.
More recently, the brand partnered with accomplished Bronx-born photographer Renell Medrano (the Chloë Sevigny of her generation), owner of streetwear label Ice Studios, as a sponsor for an all-woman softball game held in Harlem. While Medrano hasn't officially partnered with Nike yet, she already boasts shoe collaborations with Asics and New Balance, both of which were well received.
Additionally, Nike has signed on effervescent South African singer Tyla as an ambassador. For Carter's version of the Air Max Muse, the brand also tapped gymnast Jordan Chiles, who was selected to debut the silhouette last year.
Let’s face it: Nike has been hemorrhaging share in women’s—not just because the product hasn’t met the moment, but because the marketing has been a discombobulated shit show. If Nike can finally move past the Air Max failsons of the John Donahoe era (looking at you, DN and DN8, now up to 40% off), the potential is there for the brand to make something click if it pairs the right product with this potent team of female creators. And that's not even considering the pending arrival of NikeSKIMS this fall.
When operating optimally, product and marketing are joined at the hip, humming like a well-oiled machine. Nike isn't even close to that right now—at all—so for now the dream team feels like perfunctory box-checking. But if the brand can conjure a silhouette or two women “need,” Renell, Veneda, Tela, and Kim have the potential to become the four horsemen of Nike's women's revival.
Et Tu, LVMH?
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton is reportedly in talks to sell Marc Jacobs for around $1 billion. Potential buyers include Authentic Brands Group, WHP Global, and Bluestar Alliance—the latter of which recently acquired Off-White—according to the Wall Street Journal ($$).
While LVMH doesn’t break out brand-level revenue, Business of Fashion—which first reported on the rumored sale in April 2024 (a report LVMH denied at the time)—said Marc Jacobs was profitable in 2023, with sales of approximately $642 million.
At first glance, $1 billion might seem low. But the price begins to make sense when you consider the shaky global economy, Marc Jacobs’ position as a mid-tier rather than true luxury brand, and the fact that the only bidders circling are licensing firms—whose entire model hinges on buying low and squeezing brands for all they’re worth.
LVMH likely saw The Tote Bag losing steam and decided the cost of reviving the brand wasn’t worth it—especially given the rise of newer, aspirational labels with fresher energy and business models less reliant on outlet sales.
Maybe this is what Marc Jacobs himself wants. Lord knows the 31-year-old brand has gone through a seemingly endless number of fits and starts over the past 10 years and maybe he’s ready to put it all to rest. Still, considering how he helped reshape Louis Vuitton as creative director, handing off his namesake brand to a licensee feels like the ultimate womp-womp ending.
Ty Haney’s Back at OV, This Should Be Interesting
Outdoor Voices is on the comeback trail—a shift first signaled on social media when the brand wiped its Instagram feed and pared its following down to a single account: Ty Haney, who co-founded the company in 2013 at age 23 with Matt McIntyre, a fellow student at Parsons School of Design. Haney is now returning to the company in the self-described role of “founder, partner and co-owner,” alongside the team at Consortium Brand Partners, which acquired the brand last year shortly after it abruptly shuttered its 15 doors.
Before I go on, I should say: I’ve always found the Outdoor Voices story fascinating. The brand never really resonated with me, yet I’ve seen people characterize it as the first brand to fuse athletic and lifestyle wear, a claim that feels absurd to me given streetwear afficianados had embraced this trend long before Outdoor Voices arrived on the scene. It’s a reminder that like a tree falling in the forest, a trend only truly starts when the target customer sees it.
Following the initial Instagram wipe, the company also began following Try Your Best (TYB), a consumer-loyalty digital start-up, and Joggy, an energy drink brand, both of which are Haney startups. Outdoor Voices plans to launch a community on TYB in the coming week.
Haney (who, for the record, wore Nike Air Max Muse in the Instagram post above that preceded the news of her return) left the company in 2020, reportedly due to a mix of financial turmoil and clashes with then-chairman Mickey Drexler, whom she allegedly described to coworkers as “old and out of touch”—lol lol. She remains a live wire and the brand’s posts on Instagram have generated negative comments related to her multi-year friendship with Elon Musk. In a recent interview, she characterized his decision to enter politics as “unfortunate,” but went on to describe him as “a futurist” who is “super well-intentioned and often misunderstood.” In the same exchange, she also managed to take a swipe at Drexler, dinging him for criticizing her decision to move the company to Austin. The company currently operates as a mix of New York–based Consortium staff and remote employees.
As is the trend lately, Consortium co-founder and managing partner Cory Baker told Retail Dive that the brand will move away from a DTC-only model and embrace wholesale. “I think sometimes businesses that are born as DTC brands are almost too precious about being able to sell at other accounts,” Baker said. “But when you believe in your product and you believe in your brand, then you should make it as easy as possible for the customer to access it wherever they shop. And that’s something we take seriously.”
It’s not clear what wholesale accounts will sign up for Outdoor Voices, though retailers like Nordstrom and Revolve could be good fits. Still, that’s not a lot of revenue and it’s hard not to imagine Outdoor Voices being drawn in by the allure of the off-price channel’s kajillion doors.
