Building in public won't grow your fashion brand in 2026

Building in public won't grow your fashion brand in 2026, and it isn't going to make your fashion brand sales in 2026. My eyewear brand's gone from zero to six figures in six months, so I think I'm pretty educated on this subject to be talking about it. But building a personal brand is very important in 2026 for founders. That being said, do not expect your personal brand to drive sales or revenue to your brand. And that is simply because people aren't going to buy something just because they know who the founder is. Now, I think building in public is a better strategy or it looks like a better strategy for lower AOV items in pure play CPG, like if you're in food and bev, if you're in skincare, you're in certain industries like that. I think a personal story makes a lot more sense, but in fashion, there just isn't necessarily the same level of alignment. Now, people definitely like that there is a story, that there is values, but it's very much second order because in fashion, fashion is an aspirational product. You are selling your customer a story and a version of themselves that they don't have yet. And you may be selling them a version of themselves they haven't met yet or don't know they need yet. So you need to convince them that it's a version of themselves in the future that they want. Now your personal brand isn't going to do that. A personal brand, especially if you're a founder, is very likely to attract other founders or business people. And every now and then, another founder might see your product and decide they want to purchase, but that is not going to be your core consumer. And I do think that a lot of founders go wrong here. The people that follow me on my personal account compared to the people who follow the brand account are very much a different profile. And we've done like a lot of work across organic and paid to come to that conclusion. So you can save a ton of money on performance marketing if you take this advice. And that is okay because I'm not looking to like make sales from my founder account. I'm like literally wanting to share my experiences and provide value and share things that I didn't know before I started my brand. Now, in order to find that other customer group, the group that's gonna buy off you, you need to go back into your aesthetic and your belief system and your values and create a brand that's creating an aspirational world that you would like to see exist, that you can envision. But that's not necessarily the world that you live in as a founder, that's who you are as a creative director, as an artist. And the counter argument to that is obviously there's a lot of female founders in fashion who have very strong brands and very strong personal brands too. And their personal brands do help sell their fashion brand or there's some level of correlation. And people like Amy Semel or Grace Beverly may come to mind. But what I will say to that is I believe their personal brands are very important to their brand's growth, but it's second order to the fact that they have spent a lot of time in creating a really, really good product and a really, really good marketing funnel. Now, for example, if we look at Amy, we look at Oddmuse. Oddmuse know exactly what kind of woman they are targeting. That messaging is very clear in their branding. And that might not be the same woman that's following Amy for her business and brand advice because her brand advice and her business advice is very much not the same as the marketing funnel that they push on their main accounts. They very much have a fantastic product that their customers come back for over and over again. And they differentiate themselves with their customers for the fact that Amy's also a female founder. She's very inspirational and so it kind of creates a package. But even if you subtracted Amy's presence, the product has to stand alone. Even if Amy was not involved in the business anymore, I personally believe Oddmuse would still be a very, very successful business because they have a very, very good product. And if you add in the brand story, it actually gives the brand more credibility and fuel. But fundamentally, if there's no fire, adding fuel does nothing to make your fire any bigger, if that metaphor makes any sense. So if you want to scale a fashion brand in 2026, you first need to figure out what is your fire, who is your core consumer, who are you selling to and what does she want, what can you do for her? And what is the aspirational world you can create around your brand and what kind of woman is gonna respond to that? And then obviously you can then layer over your personal brand and your personal why for doing what you do. But I would say that having a founder account that is solely about you and building in public and not doing that kind of world branding work, you may find that you will attract a lot of followers, but none of your followers will convert. And that will be the single reason why nothing's happening. And I think that it's a common common trap. It has nothing to do with your product. Your product could be great because it's very easy to think that building your brand in fashion is gonna work if you put your personal story out there, if you see it working in other industries. And I see lots of founders in food and bev talking about things like personal health struggles that you go through and that's why you wanted to create a product that's super aligned and that makes complete sense to be pushing and sharing that story. But in fashion, this alignment rarely works unless you're doing a really functional apparel product, um that most of you guys probably aren't. And if you're selling something like wedding dresses, no one needs a dress. You need to make the people want the dress. And then you can also kind of talk about the story around it, why you couldn't find the right dress or things like that. But you can't lead with that story. People aren't interested in that. People who are wanting a bridal dress want to feel beautiful and special and feel like they fit into a certain aesthetic on their wedding day. So you need to be selling them that. Selling them your own personal story does not give them a reason for buying from you because you're not solving their problem, if that makes sense. So what I would say is if you are struggling to grow sales, if you're struggling to get your core demographic, go back to the drawing board and really think about what your brand is and what the aesthetic you are selling, what the lifestyle you are selling is and create that universe that you want to exist. And I genuinely do believe that you will see your sales follow after that.