The Rundown: Private Label is open for business

The "middle-age mom store." Plus: what's actually happening at mid-price retail, why white dresses are everywhere, and the launches worth knowing.

Hi - I couldn’t be more thrilled to introduce you to Private Label! I’m back on Substack and will be posting long-form content weekly. Seriously…multiple times a week.

For the first week of Private Label, I’ve removed all paywalls. Starting next week, at least 50% of the Tuesday & Thursday newsletter will be behind a paywall. You can upgrade here so you don’t miss out next week.

For the last 18 months, I’ve been reporting at Puck’s Line Sheet. I made my way there through Puck’s acquisition of Retail Diary (my previous Substack) in 2024. While I loved my time there — and will continue to contribute there occasionally — I missed directly connecting with all of you.

I’m ready to talk about shopping, the $30 trillion global retail industry, how well brands are performing, why certain brands are collaborating, and so much more. No matter the corner of the industry you love (resale, luxury, teen mall brands, direct-to-consumer brands, etc.), it will make its way in here. Private Label is the digest to help you deeply understand the world of retail or just simply talk about where to buy the best white t-shirts with your friends at brunch.

🛍️ Quick note: I write a lot (too much good stuff to share!) If you’re reading via email only, you may need to click through to the web version or read on the Substack app. I promise it will be worth it. 🛍️

In this inaugural edition: the $450 million retailer you might know about if you are in a Facebook moms’ group, why white dresses are selling (the reasons behind the trend), and sharing the Fresh Receipts on my radar. Plus: Megan & Mike Tamte, Chanel planet necklace, La Ligne Colby cropped, ShopMy, Leset, Alyssa Wasko Stein, Moda Operandi and do you know what A Sailor’s Valentine is? (first comment correctly identifying what A Sailor’s Valentine is will get an upgraded subscription.)

What is going on with mid-priced brands?! This week in the Private Label chat and in my conversations with you, I asked what topics you’re most excited about. That question came up again and again. If you aren’t looking for fast fashion and hoping to spend under $800 for an outfit, what are the options? One direction often floated is resale—simply buying the designer option at a lower price on the secondhand market. But that requires patience, an eye for what you are looking for, luck in sizing and quality, and honestly, a leap of faith. I personally shop a lot of secondhand but if you’re looking for new, what are the options?

Today, I’m sharing one multi-brand retailer that has been quietly dominating a certain subset of customers. Busy women. And they’ve specifically targeted moms over 30. Teen daughters refer to it as “the middle-age mom store.” Everyone I spoke to about Evereve told me they discovered it from another mom or found it in a moms’ Facebook group. Have you shopped Evereve? If so, tell me in the comments what you think.

Evereve: How a $450 million retailer grew in the suburbs

If you live in a suburb or know moms, you’ve likely come across the store Evereve. They have 113 stores spread out across the United States. Evereve, along with Tuckernuck, seems to be capturing the business once-guaranteed to Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, Shopbop and Revolve—contemporary brands at an accessible price point. They have a mix of brand names, their own private label (oh, hey), and exclusive collaborations that come about because of their high sales volume.

Evereve 411:

• Approaching $450 million annually in revenue for 2026 according to an inside source.

• Launched in 2004 by Megan and Mike Tamte, a husband and wife team who also serve as co-CEOs. Megan focuses on marketing & brand and Mike oversees finances.

• The first location was in Edina, MN. Edina is a suburb of Minneapolis with an average household income of $129,000 and average home prices are around $650,000. The exact upper-middle-class dynamic that makes up their customer base today. The name of the retailer was originally Hot Mama. Really.

• Bootstrapped from friends and family for the first couple of years and only $2 million in outside growth capital. Winona Capital is a minority private equity investor.

• The founders were inspired by another Midwest retailer, Crate & Barrel. Gordon Segal, the founder of C&B, is a member of the Evereve board.

The aha moment to open Evereve and jump from being a third grade teacher to a retailer came to Megan Tamte after having an emotional moment postpartum in a department store dressing room and not being able to find clothes she liked. She was frustrated by the styles, the high price points, and sales associates who didn’t seem to care about her. Shoppers today are finding Evereve as they grapple with the very same challenges.

The retailer has created a branding and marketing flywheel that works extremely well (especially for busy moms):

Email marketing that shows exactly what to wear. Each email comes with graphics and collages that are styled-for-you. No guesswork. Terms in a recent email included “flattering” and “most versatile.”

Catalogs. This suggestion was directly from Segal (the founder of Crate & Barrel), who explained that catalogs helped supercharge C&B. Though C&B was founded in 1962, there’s something about the nonconformity of being a catalog business in 2026 that’s working.

Trendsend, a styling service à la Stitch Fix where they put together pieces to work in sync (and a discount for keeping the full box). During COVID when shoppers weren’t going into stores, sending fully styled boxes was a way to stay connected, though the program first launched in 2015. In particular, denim has been a standout category for Evereve on Trendsend. According to a brand insider, it represents 26% of total sales. Evereve’s in-store denim penetration is 17.5% and via e-commerce it is 14%. This highlights how seriously they take their fit guidance. They carry brands like Agolde, Pistola, Frame and Paige, including an extensive petites selection.

Shopper-first sales associates. The brand’s sales associates (internally known as stylists) are not based on commission and will work with a customer one-on-one for an extended period of time. Over an hour is not unheard of.

Most of the shoppers I spoke to felt like they weren’t getting the help they needed from larger department store sales associates, while Evereve stylists are hyper-engaged. Many stylists began as super-fans of the brand. Lured in by the employee discount (30%), stylists tend to reflect the exact demographic Evereve is targeting — time-strapped moms who love fashion but don’t have a ton of time (or money) to spend on looking good.

As a multi-brand retailer, Evereve has become a true shopping destination. Shoppers come in looking for help head-to-toe in dressing for a particular event or occasion and can find everything from shoes, clothing and jewelry. The big miss currently is that Evereve doesn’t have any cocktail or black tie…real EVENT looks! (I’m seeing this as a huge opportunity across the retail world and I’m sure I’ll address it in a future newsletter).

Another area of opportunity is the strong focus on mom life. While it helped them grow to $450 million, they might want to work on outgrowing the mom-only mentality as they scale to $1B. Evereve’s recent campaign, covered in WWD, focuses a little less on the mom and more on the busy woman who is interested in fashion.

While not necessarily part of the marketing, another strategic decision has worked in their favor—smaller footprint stores. Evereve’s current average retail footprint is a 3,500 square foot store in an outdoor shopping center, meaning that the store buy and brands have to be thoughtful and considered. According to a source at the brand, they are quickly outgrowing this smaller footprint.

This has been a challenge for larger department stores, as they have to fill up so much space with merchandise. The smaller footprint Bloomies locations that Macy’s owned Bloomingdale’s operate are still in the 20,000 square foot range with typical department stores in the 150,000 square foot range. Shoppers shared with me that they can walk into Evereve and know that every style is on trend, but when they walk into larger department stores and see the massive assortment it isn’t easy to tell which item they should try (a shoe floor with 20 shoes at Evereve versus hundreds at a department store). For more on this, I love the study on the Paradox of Choice. One study had a grocery store sample 24 jams–and the vast majority of shoppers left without buying. But when they only sampled 6 jams, it was easier for shoppers to pick their favorite and purchase.

A shopper in a suburb in Virginia told me that the Nordstrom website scroll feels so random. Her local Nordstrom closed down, and she replaced shopping there with trips to her local Evereve. I heard the same message from another shopper in the South, where their department store is a C level store (A stores are the strongest and get the best merchandise, then B and C — I can save this for another deep dive) and no longer enjoyable to shop in. Again, her local Evereve supplanted department store shopping. As department stores have struggled after bloating to too many locations and too large of a footprint, some have implemented a drop ship program or a marketplace model online where the retailer doesn’t have to own or warehouse the inventory. Suddenly there are tons of options online. More SKUs — but less of a point of view. With a smaller footprint, Evereve ensures that every item on the floor earns its place.

To get a sense of top styles from the brand, current best sellers include this jacket, this lightweight bomber, this pants silhouette, a maxi skirt and a bubble t-shirt (the pre-tucked hem makes it simpler for someone who is looking for help to style.) They also are selling this bubble stone necklace well, which is part of another trend I’ve been tracking — hello Chanel planet necklace.

An assortment of Evereve’s current inventory and founders and co-CEOs Mike & Megan Tamte.

So why does it seem like the fashion industry isn’t talking about this retailer more? Is it due to not having a big enough presence in major fashion cities like NYC? The target demographic being busy moms? Maybe they’ve been able to grow because of less interest and focus.

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What else I want to talk about:

Trend Forecasting: White Out

Cloud Dancer was named the color of the year by Pantone, and WWD wrote about the LWD (little white dress) as the summer it piece. But there are a few more reasons why this color dress is trending (and honestly, it is every summer.):

• Graduation season. Many schools mandate that high school graduates wear white. This is from a teen approved brand.

• Sorority rush madness. Girls rushing a sorority in the late summer/early fall can rewear their high school graduation dress…or find a new one. (Rush events have strict dress codes, and a white dress is often among them).

• Bridal occasion creep. Weddings have turned into a multiple dress event for the bride AND everything else around the wedding. Bachelorette trips! Bridal showers! Engagement parties! Dressing for the time from engagement through honeymoon became a thing.

• Nightgown dressing but make it daytime. The Nap Dress ™ (trademarked by Hill House Home) and Dôen’s silk lingerie pieces for day gave the nightgown permission to come out of the bedroom and into street style. Whether you are more of a Victorian Ghost nightgown (another Nell Diamond term) or Zoë Kravitz Saint Laurent slip dress (here). Another brand that is coming for the nightgowns for day space is UK based brand If Only If (I want to dive deeper into this brand. More to come here).

Other trends I’ve been noticing and sharing on Instagram include:

• Lifeguard Hats (Ariel Gordon noted that we are all looking to protect our investments – aka our faces! Check out her DIY knotty hat with Honestly WTF).

• Easy shorts (the answer to spring’s easy pants – see La Ligne, Donni, Leset and The Row as prime examples).

• Polka dots especially in a cream with black dots colorway.

Fresh Receipts

• The easy pant that has been on the ShopMy x Line Sheet Top 10 five months in a row — The Colby from La Ligne—launched a cropped version just in time for summer.

• Staud’s new entrant to silk dupioni pants. Another Staud item I made note of is the Noah (denim with an elastic waist). Reminds me of the interesting details we keep seeing from other brands like drawstrings from Still Here and the Miramar collection from Rag & Bone. Easy pants are coming for denim. Plus the Staud Noah is in two of the key colors right now, butter yellow and cobalt (Yves Klein) blue.

• Jil Sander silly little silk bag - but make it structured.

• Moda Operandi jumped on the opportunity to work with Mélisse New York on deadstock (and drop-dead beautiful) silk bags with beads and fringe. Special evening bags are the standout accessory this summer. The VP of Non-Apparel, Ryan Kleman, shared with me that Sarah Elizabeth Bishop (Moda Operandi’s Press/Events/Influencer lead) discovered Mélisse via TikTok (content creation pays off!) and that vintage inspired novelty bags are selling well.

• Donni’s new chinos bridge the gap between hard pants and soft pants. Drawstring and pleated. (I’m of the generation that can’t think of chinos and not think of Gap…thanks to the Khaki Swing commercial). Alyssa Wasko Stein told me that the drop last week sold more than forecasted.

• Tuckernuck launched their Summer Heritage Collection filled with Nantucket Reds™ and lots of madras. They recently opened their first Nantucket shop. Nantucket has strict regulations (you can read about Roller Rabbit’s own adventures in local retail here). Tuckernuck can make it work because they have only two other locations (NYC and Georgetown) but they still changed the name to A Sailor’s Valentine.

• Given the trend of analog totes (brilliantly reported by Casey Lewis), L.L. Bean set-up a SKU with “analog” already monogrammed on it.

• Any other 80s babies remember these? Will we be using this accessory for oversized t-shirts again?

• Rhode’s new summer launches June 9th. I’m watching to see if they bought deep enough inventory, what assortment Sephora will carry (Sephora still seems to consistently be out of stock on the peptide lip tints), and how this impacts e.l.f.’s quarterly earnings in August.

What’s Next:

I’ll be sharing exec appointments, new collaborations (is FIFA going to win the summer collabs?) and a few quarterly earnings. On Wednesday, June 3rd, Inditex (parent company of Zara, Massimo Dutti, and fast-fashion new-to-the-U.S. Bershka, which will soon open in Miami) and Macy’s have their quarterly earnings. I’m curious to hear what Macy’s shares about Bloomingdale’s.

• The Deep Dive – Thursday. For Private Label’s launch week it will be free-for-all. This is the most comprehensive read of the week with a main story or two, collabs, new launches, store openings, and anything in retail, fashion and beauty we need to discuss.

• Open to Buy – Sunday. This post will always be free. After this week, paid subscribers will receive it a day early (on Saturday). Here, you’ll find the most interesting links of the week. Timely styles and fashion stories to enjoy over the weekend.

Catching Up:

If you are completely new here, first of all – thank you so much! And second, a few links so we can get acquainted:

In April I spoke with Liv Perez on her incredible podcast Let’s Get Dressed where she introduced me as “the retailer whisperer.” A nickname I’ll proudly take.

We chatted mall brands, leggings (are they dead?), easy pants (I’ve been wearing these multiple times a week, these and these), and what I look for when doing a store visit. You can read about our conversation, watch it on YouTube, or my preferred podcast method — at 1.5 speed on Spotify while enjoying a walk.

Curious who I am? Check out the Private Label About page.

Made just for you — always. See you Thursday.

xx Sarah

Private Label Issue 1

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