Oberg, who has 337,000 Instagram followers and built her career at Complex Media and Kith, launched Sporty & Rich in 2019, selling stylish but not groundbreaking separates, such as T-shirts, joggers, skirts, tops and accessories that reflected her interest in fashion and design from the 1980s and 1990s. Some pieces felt more like merch, featuring the brand name or catchy phrases like “health is wealth”. The nostalgia resonated with an audience of 20-something-year-old consumers and celebrities including models Hailey Bieber, Lori Harvey and Elsa Hosk, who are often spotted wearing pieces from the brand.
Today, Sporty & Rich employs 30 people based in Paris and is profitable. In July, the brand opened its first flagship store in New York on Soho’s Greene Street, with a view to growing direct sales. E-commerce currently accounts for 25 per cent of revenues, while wholesale brings in 75 per cent. Oberg says the business overall is on track to achieve 30 per cent sales growth in 2023, and forecasts an increase of 60-100 per cent in 2024.
Capturing the beauty customer
In addition to clothing, Sporty & Rich has been expanding into wellness. Earlier this year, Oberg published the Sporty & Rich Wellness Book, a coffee-table book containing 240 pages of interviews, essays and photography on health, skin, nutrition and fitness. There’s also Oberg’s wellness platform called Sporty & Rich Wellness Club, which features guides on everything ranging from electrolytes to omega-3 fatty acids and lymphatic drainage massages. Its dedicated Instagram account has over 60,300 followers. The core brand has over 500,000.
However, expanding into beauty requires a different approach to apparel. Oberg says she has relied on a new hire — a Parisian woman with more than 20 years of experience in skincare, who “knows the luxury beauty world inside and out” — to support with factory sourcing and product development and essentially oversee the process from start to finish. She also hired a US-based consultant, who played a key role in launching disruptive beauty brands like Glossier, to help advise on formulation, ingredients, storytelling and marketing.
Photo: Alex Nataf for Sporty & Rich
To advertise the launch, Sporty & Rich plans to use a mix of channels including more traditional formats like billboards and press coverage as well as digital marketing across Instagram and TikTok. “We plan to do social content on both [platforms] and work with key influencers who we feel are representative of the brand and beauty line. We also created a ton of assets ourselves, all of which were directed by me as all our imagery is,” Oberg says.
Whether Sporty & Rich expands into more product categories will hinge on its ability to retain customers, explains Oberg. She’s watching to see whether people will buy the launch items and like it enough to purchase it again after they’ve run out. For now, she is hopeful the brand’s fans will understand and appreciate her back-to-basics vision. “This is my essential skincare no matter the season. It’s genderless, seasonless and safe for all skin types.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.