Époque Evolution co-founder Nancy Taylor on why she says 'responsibility' instead of 'sustainability'

0:07Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Modern Retail Podcast. I'm Cale Guthrie-Weissman, the editor-in-chief here at Modern Retail. This week, we have Nancy Taylor. She is the co-founder of Epoch Evolution, an apparel company that I believe about a year ago was acquired by Lolle. She still works with Epoch Evolution, but she also has a new title of VP of Design at Lolle. Both of these brands are known for their focus on sustainability, especially when it comes to the supply chain. So I just want to talk about that. I want to talk about sort of how it's been going a year in, what's going on at Epoch Evolution, and also what's going on at Lolei overall.

0:41But, Nancy, it's really great to chat with you. How are you doing? Really good, Cale. It's nice to be here, too. I'm so excited to be a part of the program. I'm a big fan, so thank you for having me. Absolutely. So first, let's start with you, because correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, Lolei has been around since 2016, but you've worked at a bunch of different places, including Athleta, right? That's where you really cut your teeth? Yes. Yeah, correct. Give me a little bit of background about your professional history and how you got to co-founding a brand. My early roots are actually started as an entrepreneur as well.

1:15I had a small startup business, and then I had a lot of curiosity around the athletic, athleisure space. And I really wanted to move into a little bit more of a corporate setting. So I knocked on the doors at Athleta, and it was the early days. and I was lucky enough for them to open the doors widely for me. And I had a great growth run with them and was able to see from about 30 million to, you know, almost, you know, a billion dollars of growth. It was a wonderful opportunity and an amazing ride to be able to build a team and see the immediate growth in that apparel space, the athletic and the athleisure apparel space.

1:58Got it. And so was that what made you because Epoch Evolution, you're predominantly athleisure and you guys were, I wouldn't say early, like athletic wear has been around for a while, but it's a very, very hot thing to be in right about now and a few years ago. So you guys were kind of early to that trend. Was it your athleta background that led you to want to found this brand? It was that. And I think it was a lot of my own personal experience of seeing where the market was and how we were going about our days. and I saw the segmentation of the apparel where you either had to have athletic apparel, then you had work apparel, then you had your go out apparel and it was all these separate buckets.

2:37And when you're traveling, you have a suitcase and you wanna pack everything, it's limited in where you go. And I, well, wouldn't it be great if you had this ease of a wardrobe that was multipurpose, that did everything. And it was a little bit more fashion, travel, work focused that wasn't exactly in that athletic space. So it was a need for having that fluidity about your day and a little bit more of a fashion bent to it. Neutral color palette. So again, everything went back. Also the timelessness, not something that was disposable, something that you could wear for years. You could buy new pieces and integrate it into the core pieces that already existed.

3:17Got it. And how would you say, or how would you say the brand evolved over the years? Is it exactly how you imagined it would be, what, seven years in? It's a really good question. Thank you for asking that. It has some of the core roots, for sure. We spent definitely about nine months defining on where the white space was, what we wanted it to look like. And then as you launch and you go about the product development and understanding what the customer wants, you start having a conversation with the customer. then it evolves around what she's looking for, what you think you can test out. And it's morphed a bit.

4:00It continues to morph. I think the pandemic in 2020 really changed the dynamic of the world in so many ways. And how we go about telling the story and what the journey is. And you're constantly learning. So I think that that is the key to success is to learn every single day. and be willing to take some pivots and some chances, chances on where you think the brand is going to go and what the customer wants. But the conversation with the customer is the best. I mean, when we first launched, we had this idea on some key products from my background that I thought would be no brainer, that this is something that she wanted.

4:37And what the customer quickly told us is that she didn't want the basics because she could get the basics someplace else, that she wanted something with a little bit of a fashion twist or something that was a little bit unique. And my assumptions at that point in time were completely wrong. And if you would have asked me before we launched, I would have said, no way. I usually, especially now that we're in 2024, try not to focus about the pandemic because every business changed and everyone knows that. But when you talk about a product like Epoch and just that space as a whole, how people were wearing clothes then changed overnight and what people were presenting and athleisure saw this big boom.

5:17Have you found that that has stayed true throughout? Or how have the, not consumption patterns, but the people wearing clothing patterns shifted? And have you shifted back to what you're designing, what you're putting out after the pandemic now? Or has it remained relatively the same? Well, ironically, we were poised really well for that positioning because the clothes were comfortable. They were made to ease, work at ease throughout her day. They were machine washable. They weren't so perfect that you had to have them dry cleaned or ironed. So the premise of the brand was there. I do believe that we had more of a focus on the tops and the outerwear portion of it because that was what was more visible on the Zoom meetings and how she went about for her work.

6:04We were definitely seated in a lot of travel. And so the focus became around it wasn't getting on a plane and traveling. It was more about traveling throughout her day. So was it something that she could wake up in the morning, put on her outfit, and then when she got done with her meetings, could she walk the dog or pick up the kids, doing what she's doing about her day? So that focus shifted a little bit. And we've stayed there. We've stayed there with the messaging so that it was less around the product offering and more about the messaging. Got it. You have APOC, which is much more fashion-focused, higher-end, you know, the female customer.

6:40And then you have Loli, which is focused much more on the athletic side of things. Is that correct? And so how did that come to be? What was the vision between that? And walk me through just sort of a year ago when this began. I had worked with Loli before and doing a reset with their brand. So I was very familiar with the team and helping them maneuver through what it was looking like in its brand expression. And it has this wonderful outdoor femininity that other brands didn't have in the market space. So going, again, back to the roots of the original brand, then we were able to reset that and have the customer know it, bring the color palette a little bit more forward to what was, I would say, a more modern aesthetic.

7:28And then looking at the not necessarily athletic or athleisure, but marrying those two in the outdoor space. So the team and, you know, my team and my contractors had a wonderful synergy with it. And they approached me about coming on board full time with them and really looking at the possibility and the beauty of what we were developing with Epoch and melding the two so that we could have a tiered approach with the brands. And it was a great, great offering and a great synergy. So it was just a good it was a good marriage. Yeah. And so like the way it works is that there are still two very separate brands, right?

8:08And they just sort of fit underneath the umbrella of Lole brands. That's correct. And they also have a third tier that is more mass market. So like a lot of other brands, they have three different divisions. So you have a mass market price tiered approach. And then you have your, you know, your regular mid market with Lole brands and the athletic athleisure place. And then Epoch is the more premium brand and bordering athleisure and fashion. So it's a three-tiered approach with that. Got it. Got it. Makes sense. And so how has your role specifically changed in the past year? You know, you were focused before then on EPOC.

8:44Now you have this new title VP of Design for the overall umbrella. What are you looking at? What are you focused on? What's keeping you up at night? There's a lot of that. That's another really good question. Coffee, for one.

9:00the the biggest thing was blending all the the team together to work on all the channels and so I think that was the biggest uh the biggest hurdle is that we worked in silos before we had a certain team that worked with epoch we had a certain team that worked with lole and then we had a certain team that worked with mass market and so this whole year has been integrating so that all the teams can fluidly work between we have a large a slightly larger team that's putting all the brands together and volume. Plus, we've had growth in the brands. So with the growth, it comes into what do you need for the resources that support it.

9:34But I think being flexible these days and working and understanding what the identity of is of each brand, but having the same teams work within the three brands. The other challenge was in the pipeline process is trying to figure out the deliverables and getting ahead of all of the design asks and needs, but not having the same deadlines on top of each other. So it took a lot of work with the team and figuring that out so that we could not have them on top of each other and kind of have a little bit more fluidity in how we delivered each channel. So those were our biggest challenges. And has, at least for Epoch, Has the business model shifted or are there more opportunities there?

10:20Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're predominantly direct to consumer. Is that right? That is correct. And we're there in that space right now. We're currently exploring what the expansion of that looks like. So does it look like wholesale, retail partners? Do we do our own stand-up retail? So those are all opportunities that we're exploring. And then the transition of bringing the brand into the new parent company doesn't come without some bumps. So we had to work out the teams and figuring out the priorities. How does it work? Getting them on the same systems and platforms. So there was about a year transition of getting all of that working part, which is normal business.

11:05But we are in a place now where everything is integrated. The teams are integrated. We had separate marketing teams and we, in August, were able to migrate everything over to the same marketing team, which is exciting. So a lot of those growth challenges and I think when a brand is acquired, figuring out how it works with the parent company. So that's great. And then looking at what the opportunities are. What does the brand look like? What are the expansions? What's the customer currently telling us? The change in the digital marketing space, the paid marketing space has been drastic from when we first launched to now.

11:40And how do we manage that channel? We currently brought it back in-house now. And that's the first time that they've managed it in-house successfully. It's been great. But that was a big leap for us too, as opposed to working with agencies on the paid space. And I do believe now that you have to look at other channels beyond just the paid channel. So we're definitely looking at what the expansion looks like and getting it into a retail footprint so the customer can experience it, she can touch it, she can see it. Got it. Wow, there's so much to dig in there. And there's one thing that you said that this is just from my observation from talking with founders like you, but it seems like when you are acquired or there's a big change to how the business works, year two is really year one in a sense because the first year you're just making sure everything talks to each other, is interoperable, people know what they're doing.

12:30And then when you finally, usually around 10 to 12 months after that, you can be like, all right, now here's what the future actually looks like. Would you say that's how it's been? 100 % agree with that. Everyone wants it to happen quickly, but it is a process. Like anything else, it is a process. And I think, too, having the teams might be excited about a brand, but really understanding the DNA of a brand and how it operates and who the customer is, that it takes time. Absolutely. So I wanted to dig more into this marketing question, just because you brought it up. What made you decide to in-house everything?

13:08Was it just, I feel like these kinds of decisions come, you know, they're very, I guess you could say circular or cyclical, where one time it's really popular to work with agencies and then you don't have to have the team in-house. Then a couple years later, nope, you should in-house everything. How did you decide that now was the time to in-house? Was it just that you would be able to do the best brand storytelling, make the best strategic decisions? What made you do that? Well, one of the great things about the acquisition is that we were able to work with the CRM data and the platform that was built for us.

13:41We had early investors that had a lot of strength in that. And so during the pandemic, they actually built a platform for us to read the analytics with a brand our size we would not have had. And then through the acquisition, they actually kept and hired them as a consultant so that they would train our team on the CRM data and how to run it. So we had the availability luxury. I have a lot of gratitude for how that went. So there was about a three to four month training period on our internal teams on how to work with the data. They're an amazing team. So they worked with an agency that we had previously worked with, with EPOC.

14:19So again, when the acquisition happened, they onboarded our own digital agency because we had a lot of success with them and a great communication. And they were able to work really well with our internal teams. Our internal teams felt that they were ready to handle it on their own after about a year. So again, that's that year transition, understanding the platform, how to read the data, working with the agency. The agency was very accommodating when we said we wanted to bring it in-house and supported that transition. So we're about three months into that. It's been going really, really well.

14:53But it didn't, it wasn't like they just said, oh, we want to do it. And they wanted to make the shift. It was a full year transition of understanding the platforms, the data, you know, where the current model is. And, you know, we may go back to an agency, but right now it's working and that's good. It all comes down to dollars and your return on investment. Yeah, if it's working, you know, don't fix what isn't broken. With this shift, has the channel mix shifted? Have you, are you, has the strategy shifted? Where are you leaning on and what are you finding works best in terms of reaching customers?

15:27It's rapidly changing. So month over month, it could be something different that we are still relying on a lot of the meta platforms that Facebook and Instagram, Google has increased. You know, we did a lot of early work and coming back onto the search words that we, again, And what you can afford is a smaller brand. We're still a very small brand in its infancy. So you can't bid on huge keywords from a Google search and make the return profitable. Then, and again, getting just out of that paid part, how do you make your organic work? And how do you make it work better for you? What's your return on it?

16:08How often are you marketing to the customer? And I do believe that the wholesale or retail mix is the next portion of it. Or do we do pop-ups with collaborations with other, you know, like retail stores where we can travel around? So that part is the biggest question of figuring it out. And that's the conversation that's on the table currently. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. I wanted to switch gears a little bit because I know that something that's important for EPOC, as well as Lole, is the focus on sustainability and reducing the carbon footprint. Can you just talk about what the approach has historically been?

16:48How has that been infused into the products you make? Has it changed? Talk about the approach. The initial approach with EPOC was a passion of mine. And so I was truly, truly passionate about trying to do things in the responsible way. So we took the word sustainable out of it and we used the word responsible. So responsible was a better umbrella that would encompass not only the raw materials that you picked, the construction that you made, the resources that actually made your clothing. So it was a bigger umbrella than just the sustainable part of it. It was harder than I thought. I initially thought that I could just go in and find the materials that I wanted and I could produce it the way I wanted and I could tell the story.

17:40So we would always say, and we still use this verbiage, is that we're not perfect. We're doing the best we can with the options that we have in front of us. And we relook at those options every six months. And that goes with the same thing with Lillet, with their brand and even the mass market. there is a big push and a big love internally about trying to make the most sustainable choices that we can that's affordable to us now. We are working on trying to get our B Corp certification. It's a very labor-intensive part. We always wanted to do it with EPOC, but we didn't have the resources to do it.

18:13So now for Loli Brands, we're in the middle of starting the process. So again, I think it's really important for us to start measuring. We do get all the certificates We talk with, and a lot of times there's things that we're doing on the back end that we cannot converse with our customers about. We're just making those decisions because they're the right things to do. So as we go about it, it's a little hard to sort through some of the material. I give this example of the recycled content versus a bio content on some of the polys and nylons. So there's a lot of technology that's happening, especially in this athletic, athleisure apparel world.

18:50And there's a lot of great things on the raw materials. But unless you can measure what your choices are, it's hard to make the decisions. So is it better to have a 100 % recycled content or is it better to have a bio-based out of sugar, for example? But then what are the environmental costs of the sugarcane industry or something that's from corn? Because those are where the biggest raw materials are being produced and mimicking those fossil fuel molecules from the polyester to nylon. So those are still challenging for us. I'm currently taking a course in sustainability through MIT and how you measure it with a life cycle analysis and some of the others to sort through.

19:33And it's fuzzy, but you have to look at all the information, look at all the data again, and then try to make the best decisions that you can. How, especially when you were smaller when you launched, how were you able to balance thinking and acting responsibly with price point and how much it would cost? Because I feel that seems like the most difficult thing when you are trying to do this is that that would raise your costs however fold. Yeah, it does a little bit. But now the choice is out there and the market has moved to it, especially from a raw material choice. It's not that much of a difference.

20:07It doesn't erode your margins that much. It did earlier when I was in the early days in Athleta before they became a B Corp and we were trying to move the needle. It was really hard and it was virtually impossible because the cost difference could be 25 or 30 % different. But now it's not a huge amount difference. The biggest thing for us were, you know, where do we produce? How do you do it? Where do you produce? We chose to take Europe and the domestic and U.S. production to begin with, and we had to work around minimums. Again, when you start out, you can't produce it in Asia for 3 ,000 pieces.

20:42It's just not reasonable and it wasn't where we went. So we decided to do the European production where we could work with our partners. We could also do test runs. So to mitigate some of the extra overproduction, we would take a new design and we would order 100 or 150 pieces. And our factories would work with us to do the smaller minimums. Then we could test it and we could see if there was an appetite from the customer or not. If there was an appetite, it sold out really quickly. Then we would move on to a larger order. And then we would sell out of that. So in the early days, we were very limited.

21:15You could see the comments from our customer because we would sell out. Then we'd have to get back into it. And then we would sell out. And then it takes, you know, four or five months to get back into it. So there's been this ebb and flow about do you grow slower? Do you grow faster? How do you mitigate risk? Because I think that all comes under the umbrella of responsible production and sustainability and growing a brand. And I would say that there are amazing partners in Asia. We work with some fabulous partners that we don't we don't work with any factories. We don't walk in. We are there.

21:45We have audits. We are making sure that the compliance is there. So we have fabulous partners and they work on different tiers with us. But again, that focus on the sustainable portion of it is seated in all the brands. And I wanted to ask about the other brands. Are you now or will you be sharing supply chain or back-end resources for this type of stuff? Or how is that being integrated? I think once we can start measuring them, that will be right now, you know, the certifications. If somebody reaches out what we're stating, we have all the certifications. Once we start measuring with the B Corp and we can be more transparent and give that data directly out to the customer.

22:32So, and we've shifted, you know, all of our raw materials. Definitely, I think the last season that 100 % of our raw material choices had a sustainable attribution and we've been slowly working there. But for us to actually hit that 100 % mark, I think that was for fall 24, was super exciting because in previous seasons, we always had one or two slight outliers that we just weren't able to source it from that country. And again, you might be able to source it from another country, but then your carbon fiber footprint of moving it from country to another country is actually higher than the raw materials.

23:06So there's a lot that, again, it's not black and white. It's very fuzzy sometimes when it comes to that responsible umbrella. I wanted to ask, because whenever I talk with someone who has this responsibility or sustainability focus, I'm always just interested on the customer side. So how much of this do you infuse in your marketing or is important to the brand storytelling, or how much is just, this is what I'm doing and this is how we do business. And if the people want to buy our products, that's great, but they don't need to know, or maybe they don't care. How do you think about that? For me, it's important.

23:40And I want to educate the customer. And we're never going to change our industry. We're the second largest polluter in the world, the apparel industry. We're never going to change it if we don't educate the customer. I'm very passionate about it. So I think that there's this responsibility we have as brands. And especially if you're telling people that they can live their best life and outdoors, that you need to look at all of that. And I think they need to care. And if it costs a little bit more, hopefully she cares. I want the customer that understands that there's, I give another example of the cost of a white t-shirt.

24:15There's this great YouTube video if you want to go down a rabbit hole and look it up. But your$8 mass market white t-shirt comes at a cost. It may be cheap for you to purchase it, but the cost that you have down the road, when you look at the impacts it has with climate change, or you look at the displacement of marginalized people, that that is a bigger problem that does affect you and comes at a cost that's not directly associated with your wallet. Those are things that we need to understand as a consumer. So we're never going to change the industry unless we educate ourselves and the consumer.

24:53So that's my personal passion. It's not always easy to be able to execute on it. But if you keep pushing towards it, you make steady progress towards it every single day because you also have to balance out the fiscal responsibility of the businesses and the growth. So there is this real world issue of making sure that you can balance the two and continue to move the needle. All right. That makes a lot of sense. I wanted to ask just a few more questions about the B Corp stuff because I've talked with companies who have just said it's one of the most arduous processes. What are you going through right now with it?