Nasty Gal

» see nastygal.com as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ the goodbye ~

the demographic nasty gal built for was american women in their twenties buying vintage-cut clothes online around 2010. i was not in that demographic and i was not in that country. what reached me later was the founder narrative, sophia amoruso's book coming out in 2014 and the #girlboss word taking on a life outside the store it was selling.

nasty gal inc. filed for chapter 11 on 9 november 2016 in the united states bankruptcy court for the district of delaware. the company had raised roughly $65 million in venture money by that point, mostly from index ventures in 2012. the boohoo group of the uk bought the brand and the domain in february 2017 for around $40 million. the independent company that had been the story was over. what continued was the label, running as a dropshipping subsidiary of a much larger fast-fashion operator.

the arc from ebay store to chapter 11 took ten years and change. amoruso started selling vintage pieces on ebay in 2006 outta san francisco, moved to standalone in 2008, then to los angeles in 2010. by 2011 revenue was $24 million with a growth rate inc. magazine described as 11,200 percent over three years. that number is the reason index ventures wrote the 2012 check. it is also the reason the operation grew faster than it could support.

~ the chronicle ~

~ what she built ~

the product itself was a curated fashion catalog that mixed vintage sourcing early on with an in-house line launched in 2012. the tone was written in the store's copy, playful and slightly abrasive at once, and the store moved earlier than most peers on social channels for its distribution. the melrose avenue flagship opened in 2014, then a second store in santa monica in 2015. sheree waterson came in as ceo the same year to steady the finances. by then the runway was short.

~ how it broke ~

the operations layer never caught up with the revenue curve. warehouses in emeryville and staffing costs, plus the pivot into in-house design and physical stores, ate margin the ebay-era store had not needed to worry about. inc. magazine ran a piece titled "how overfunding killed nasty gal" that made the case that the $40 million round had funded a scale the underlying economics could not support. by 2015 the company was cutting staff. by late 2016 the chapter 11 filing was the outcome the finances had been pointing toward for two years.

~ the boohoo era ~

boohoo picked up the name and the customer data in february 2017 for about $40 million. that price was very close to what one venture round alone had put into the company. the brand still exists on the boohoo platform in 2026, running with none of the independent-california-tone that had defined it. the founder went on to write a second book and, later, start a smaller label called girlboss. the phrase itself passed through its cultural moment and into a retrospective mood a few years later.

@}-->--

              )
             (_)
            .-'-.
            |   |
            |   |
            |   |
            |   |
          __|   |__   .-.
       .-'  |   |  `-:   :
      :     `---'     :-'
       `-._       _.-'
           '""""""

« previous  ·  random  ·  next »