Revolveclothing.com's Focus on Fashion
Hip and edgy fashion comes fast in the form of Revolveclothing.com. The La Mirada, Calif.–based company offers a wide selection of contemporary brands for women and men, including a broad array of denim.
The idea for Revolve Clothing hatched while co-owners Mike Karanikolas and Michael Mente worked together at Nextstrat, a now-defunct software company in Newport Beach, Calif. The dot-com boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s was coming to an end, and Karanikolas and Mente felt the time was right to experiment with a new e-commerce site in 2003. “We identified with an under-served market and felt there was a place for fashion-forwards aspiring for luxury that wasn’t well represented,” Karanikolas said.
Coming from mainly tech backgrounds, the first-time retailers initially experimented with different aspects of the site to find what worked, according to Karanikolas. The experimentation paid off; Revolve Clothing’s list of brands has grown to more than 300. Revolve Clothing features a mix of denim staples such as True Religion, 7 For All Mankind and J Brand (retail priced from $130 to $300), along with up-and-coming brands such as Jovovich-Hawk, Grey Ant and Mike & Chris. New styles are added frequently.
“Our product mix and lines that we carry show that we have a great selection of clothing in a range of price points—everything from a $30 shirt to a $1,200 handbag,” Karanikolas said.
With more than 1 million unique visitors each month, Revolve Clothing has several fresh ways to entice shoppers to the site. A style blog reports the latest trends, new designers and fashion straight from the street. Boutiques titled “Excite,” “Represent” and “Play” feature different style segments with editorial layouts that range from high-fashion designer to streetwear.
Designers also put together style guides exclusively for the site. Jodi Arnold of the contemporary label Mint compiled her picks for the Spring ’08 style guide. Past style guides featured Cristina Ehrlich and Estee Stanley, the team behind Miss Davenporte, and celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe.
Each piece you click on also offers an in-depth fit guide and an interactive area for customer comments. “The comments are an easier way to interact with customers and allow them to speak directly to us in a casual way,” Mente said.
Offering services such as free shipping, free return shipping and price matching was a conscious decision on the part of Karanikolas and Mente. California and New York represent a large portion of Revolve Clothing’s customer base, but customers come from all 50 states, with 20 percent of the company’s business coming from international shoppers, Mente said.
Mente and Karanikolas are branching out further, with plans to open a bricks-and-mortar store on Los Angeles’ Melrose Avenue in the fall, as well as expanding the men’s fashions sold on the site. “Men’s business is growing, and now’s the time to pursue aggressively,” Mente said. “Brands such as Endovanera, Corpus, Robert Geller, Fremont and Orthodox sit well together and are a little more forward and edgy.” —Connie Cho
