AYR Has Been Low-Key Killing It, and It's Only Getting Better
Friends Maggie Winter and Max Bonbrest launched AYR in 2014 amid a bit of a DTC craze, but the brand has proven to outlast and best most of its competitors. AYR is 98 percent direct-to-consumer with retail stores strategically placed in New York, Los Angeles, and East Hampton. And according to The Business of Fashion, the brand "expects to hit $60 million in sales" this year. So what's the secret sauce to so much success and steady growth? Attribute it to the 25,000-person wait lists for star items like, well, The Secret Sauce jeans and oversized Deep End button-downs.
AYR stands for "all year round," and that inclusive approachability is at the core of everything the brand does. To help bring AYR to the next level, last year Winter and Bonbrest brought on Brigette Deshais, formerly the director of ready-to-wear at Frame, with stints at Theory and Anthropologie prior to that. They're also debuting menswear, helmed by Brice Pattison, who came from Todd Snyder.
"We've evolved as a brand. In this next iteration, we're adding really premium, beautiful sweaters; adding in dresses (a category that we didn't really do super strongly); adding in those date night tops that you can pair with AYR denim," Bonbrest tells BAZAAR.com of the label's growth strategy. "It's just really rounded out the collection and the brand. I feel like we're growing up with our customer in a big way, and Bridget's been hugely beneficial—adding a little bit of femininity and a little bit of sexy in ways that we really didn't have before."
Deshais's working knowledge of AYR was as the creator of "the best classic pieces in your closet. … And I knew the quality was really good," she says. It's "American sportswear … Bill Blast, Donna Karan, early Calvin [Klein], actually early Jones of New York and all of those things, the classic American."
So where does a designer go from there? "I got the sense that they [Winter and Bonbrest] were really proud of what they built. … They just felt like we could expand that offering a little bit more," Deshais says of coming to work on the label. "I was looking at it from a silhouette perspective, and I was just thinking about all the women that I know and opting for more body-conscious dressing. … And I felt like we could add and incorporate some of that into the line, and capture a little bit more of a broad audience, but that still had the classic DNA of AYR," she continues.
It's about building upon what's already working. A seasonal catalog, featuring models including Bonbrest's own grandmother, is a profit driver for AYR. Deshais has a hand in that as well, helping style the very pieces she designs. "I love that we own our narrative, because we're a DTC brand. And so, we own how we're showing the clothes and how we're styling them together," the designer explains. "The catalog is just the best expression of that. It is actually really fun to work on."
Standouts of the collection remain just that, standouts, and Deshais and AYR are creating from there. The striped French Fry top now has a short-sleeved, swingier T-shirt counterpart. The straight-leg LaLa jean is a new, '90s-inspired style created from that beloved AYR denim fabric. There's also a new cashmere program and some slinky knit dresses.
"I think that the AYR woman really relies on her clothing having a ton of end use," Deshais says. "She really wants her clothing to work for her, but I think that she wants to also have fun while dressing. I think that the brand voice of AYR is very fun. It's really inviting." The 25,000 women on those wait lists would agree.
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