Mid-July may be peak bathing suit season, but Same is turning in the opposite direction with an eye toward ready-to-wear.
On Monday, the Los Angeles-based brand from social media personality Shea Marie made its first resort-driven line of knit dresses and skirt sets available online. Totaling just seven skus, Marie admitted it’s a modest start but assured there’s more to come. “For me, it’s quality over quantity 100 percent,” she said. “I would never launch something I wouldn’t personally wear.”
While Same previously tested a pair of dresses tied to its bestselling Grace suit and, more recently, expanded into denim in February, Marie considers this her official dry-land debut.
A look from Same’s debut rtw collection.
Courtesy of Same
Marie, who cofounded Same in 2015 with help from chief operating officer Ryan Horne, credits the brand’s success to elevating swimwear into a “more high fashion category.”
“We’ve kind of established ourselves as the ‘It’ girl’s brand,” she said. Her shoppers, including Hailey Bieber and Sydney Sweeney, will likely recognize the collection’s cutouts, two-tone accents and ruffle trim with a West-Coast-meets-French-coast vibe.
“I call it like your out-of-office wardrobe,” said Marie, who favors a baby pink bateau-neck maxi with a plunging open back because “you can wear it day to night, on vacation or not.”
A look from Same’s debut rtw collection.
Courtesy of Same
Marie is currently hosting her second “Same Tropez” activation, flooding a private villa in the tony beach town with influencer friends to promote the drop.
Raising brand awareness internationally is top of mind for Same, but Marie and Horne are also setting down roots closer to home with a retail store to open in Miami or New York later this year.
“It’s fun and it’s exciting,” shared Marie of all the happenings, “but it’s also a little scary because it’s new for me.” Still, she’s relieved to be growing at her own pace without pressure from outside investors or wholesale accounts, which the brand pulled out of during the pandemic.
“Being [direct-to-consumer], we don’t have to abide by any strict deadlines or seasons,” she continued. “As we design pieces and feel they’re ready, we’ll bring them to market.”