Back To Basics

Everlane’s new Soho flagship, the e-tailer’s first brick-and-mortar store, embraces its ethos of transparency.

- Anna Fixsen

Consider the online purchase of one of Everlane’s signature cashmere crewnecks: Before even hitting “add to bag,” you will learn that the sweater originates in a knitwear factory in Dongguan, a city of eight million in China’s Pearl River Delta. You will learn that this facility employs 800 workers, many of whom enjoy playing mah-jongg on the weekends. And you will learn that the base cost to produce the sweater is $45, and it will be sold to you for $100.

This practice—this minute attention to detail and narrative—is part of what Everlane calls “radical transparency,” an ethos that both underpins the company’s identity and drives its business model. “I think people are looking for brands that stand for something,” says Michael Preysman, who launched the San Francisco–based company in 2011. “We’ve done it by being careful about what we do.”

That deliberate approach is working. Everlane today produces more than 20,000 T-shirts a month. Recode reported the company earned north of $50 million in its fifth year. Products are regularly wait-listed; last summer its Day Heel had a 28,000-person queue.

Everlane managed to achieve such cult status without opening a single brick-and-mortar store. In fact, in 2012 Preysman swore to the New York Times that he would “shut the company down” before venturing into permanent retail.