HIBT Lab! Universal Standard: Polina Veksler

In 2014, friends Polina Veksler and Alex Waldman went clothes shopping at a major department store. To Polina’s surprise, Alex’s options were quite limited, and tucked away in one of the store’s less-traveled upper levels: the ‘plus-size’ section. This unnerving realization that women could have such completely different shopping experiences at the same store drove Polina into research mode. She found that about 70% of women in the U. S. wear a size 14 or larger, but less than 20% of clothing is made in those sizes. Meanwhile, much of the double-digit-sized clothing available is fast fashion: not particularly well-fitting or built to last. Alex and Polina decided to create Universal Standard: a clothing brand where size was irrelevant – where any woman could shop and ask herself, “do I like this?” – not “does this come in my size?” This week on How I Built This Lab, Guy and Polina discuss the $100 billion opportunity to serve women of all sizes, as well as the challenges that come with building a size inclusive clothing brand. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 5:12Guy Raz?

  Hello and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So if you've ever tried to shop for clothing and you are a typical consumer, you are unlikely to find a size that fits you. In fact, as you will hear in today's show, the average size of a woman in the United States is 18, size 18. And yet, the majority of fashion brands only go up to size 12, maybe 14. Well, a few years ago, two friends in New York, Polina Veksler and Alex Waldman, realized there might be a market opportunity there. They discovered that most fashion brands were leaving billions of dollars on the table by not serving the majority of consumers,

• 5:57Guy Raz?

  people who fit into double-digit sizes. Yes, some brands had and have "plus sizing." But Polina and Alex didn't want to segregate women into different sizing groups. They wanted to build a brand for every shape and size with a high design sensibility. So in 2015, they founded Universal Standard.

• 6:21Guy Raz?

  Now, neither Alex nor Polina had any experience as fashion designers, and neither had come from the apparel industry. But they both saw a way to serve an underserved consumer base. Polina, who is our guest today, came to the United States as a kid. Her family fled Russia at a time when anti-Jewish hostility made it an extremely unpleasant place to live.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  I was eight years old when we immigrated from Russia.

• 6:51Guy Raz?

  And this was, I think, around 1990. Tell me the circumstances of leaving Russia and coming to the US.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  We left when it was still the former Soviet Union, and my parents wanted a better life for myself and my brother. And the antisemitism at the time was quite high, and we were lucky enough to be able to leave and end up in Florida.

• 7:16Guy Raz?

  Yeah, a lot of people may not remember this, but it was very difficult for Jews, a small minority in Russia, to keep their traditions up because officially, religion was banned. And I remember when I was a kid, kids would have their bar mitzvahs, and they would honor a Russian Jewish kid who was not allowed to have one.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, my parents didn't even tell me that I was Jewish until we left Russia. Because I remember even on a playground, and I was really young, but little girls coming up to me and saying, are you Jewish? And I didn't know what that meant. And I would say, no. And they would say, OK, then we can play with you. So I did not even know what that meant until we were in the middle of our immigration process.

• 8:04Guy Raz?

  Wow. All right, so you arrive as an eight-year-old, no English, to Florida.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:10Guy Raz?

  To a brand-new country, and not just a brand-new culture, but Florida, from the cold of Russia to palm trees in Florida. What do you remember about trying to become an American as a kid? Was it hard?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  I was old enough, at eight years old, to vividly remember certain scenes and certain...

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Uh, aspects of the immigration process, but I think I was too young to really appreciate the difficulty of it on my parents and what it all really meant. I remember first time we went to Publix, a grocery store and not having to stand in line and shelves being filled. And I actually remember my mom starting to cry at that grocery store from the overwhelming experience of just being in a place that was so, so different.

• 9:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Okay. So you grew up in mainly in Florida?

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 9:11Guy Raz?

  And, and I know you went on to pursue accounting and finance in college. Was your idea to go into finance?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  I think, uh, I thought I was going to be a public accountant. I thought that I would go work at a big four and have a very stable job with a very stable paycheck.

• 9:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Right. I'm sure because you'd grown up with so much uncertainty that that probably sounded like the right decision.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was the, the safe decision.

• 9:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So after you graduate college, I think you, you soon end up in New York in investment banking, which I think would lead you to the like eventually the West Coast and then back to Russia for some time and then to Africa. Tell me a little bit about your career as an investment banker.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was really excited to get that job as an investment banker, but then very quickly realized that I didn't love it. I didn't love the lifestyle. I didn't love the pressure, but I did get an amazing skillset. And so the first chance that I got, um, I was able to move to Seattle and work in strategy at Microsoft, which I really enjoyed and worked with a lot of people that I still consider to be role models. And out of the blue, one day got a call from an investment bank in Russia.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  And asked if I wanted to move over and much to my parents dissatisfaction. I took that opportunity, really wanting to learn Russian again, see what it was like working in emerging markets and just wanted that career path of working in a different country.

• 11:10Guy Raz?

  All right, you, I think you would do that for a few years before you would leave and come back to the US. Then you came back to New York without a job, right?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was working abroad for about six years in Russia and in Africa. And I felt like it was time to come back to the States. I moved back to New York simply because my background is in finance and I thought that was a smart place to go to help find a job. But moved back without a job, without a network, with maybe one friend in New York at the time, and wanted to kind of start this new chapter of my life in New York.

• 11:51Guy Raz?

  All right. So you get to New York and what was the plan?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  So I started reaching out to various people and tried to establish a network. I started going on a bunch of interviews and-

• 12:03Guy Raz?

  These are for like finance jobs?

• 12:04Speaker 01

  For finance jobs. And then I actually, in one of my reach outs, someone said that a woman by the name of Alex Waldman, who had also worked a majority of her career abroad, also just recently moved to New York and she was working in marketing for a hedge fund. And she was someone that I was connected to. So I reached out to her and sent her my resume.

• 12:33Guy Raz?

  Thinking that maybe you'd go work in, in marketing instead of, of the finance side?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Thinking that maybe she would get it in the right hands at her hedge fund.

• 12:43Guy Raz?

  Ah, I see. Okay, got it. And Alex was a marketer at the hedge fund and that's all you knew. You just, somebody had a connection to her and you thought, okay, maybe she can help me get an interview there.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Yes, but we also then ended up going to grab a drink and very, very quickly became the best of friends.

• 13:06Guy Raz?

  What were you guys talking about? What'd you connect over?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  She's worked about seven years in Russia. She's also immigrated. She was actually born in the Ukraine and immigrated when she was young. So we had so many things in common and both had a very, very small network in New York. So we basically just gravitated towards each other and became pretty close friends.

• 13:35Guy Raz?

  All right, so she becomes a friend and but you're meanwhile still looking for a job. But that didn't happen. I guess the two of you started to say, well, maybe we should start something. How did, how did that conversation even begin?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was unemployed for probably a year and a half, maybe a little bit longer. We were friends throughout this entire time. I was invited to go to a networking event and I finally thought that I needed to get a little bit more serious about finding employment. I did not want to go to this event by myself and Alex graciously said she was going to come with me.

• 14:14Guy Raz?

  And by the way, this is around, what, like 2014?

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And a couple of days before the event, Alex said to me, I'm not going. And I said, why not? And she said, I just have nothing to wear. And I looked at her and said, look, you live a couple of blocks away from Fifth Avenue. Let's just go shopping. And she looked at me and said, do you know that there's not a single store on Fifth Avenue that I could walk into and by clothing for myself? And that didn't really register with me. I didn't really understand what exactly she was saying, nor was I really concerned about it. I was very focused on not going to this event by myself.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  And I said, look, I don't care where we go shopping. Let's just go wherever you want and you can come with me.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  So what she ended up doing was she said, let's go to Bloomingdale's. And we walked by all these beautifully merchandised floors. And she took me to one of the top floors. I think it was the furniture floor or something like that. It had couch cushions, pots and pans, maybe like some last year's bikinis. And there was a small little section where she said, okay, let's shop for me here.

• 15:38Guy Raz?

  What was the section?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  It was, I guess it was that plus size section at the time. But I didn't realize how different her shopping experience has been her whole adult life compared to mine until that moment.

• 15:56Guy Raz?

  Because her body shape was was slightly different or maybe actually very similar to the majority of of people, but the clothing sizes were not designed for for Alex?

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, she happened to wear double digit sizing. I happened to wear single digit sizing. And as a result, her access to style, fabric, fit was very, very different. Her entire adult life.

• 16:27Guy Raz?

  Is that because most fashion brands only make a small number of sizes?

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the longest time, fashion has been extremely exclusive. And fashion is exclusive by nature. And I learned this in the process. What was available to her in her sizes was for the vast majority was fast fashion.

• 16:55Guy Raz?

  Right. And not necessarily well fitting.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  And not well fitting, not lasting, and not the type of styles with all the options that a straight size woman has that someone would choose if they had the choice.

• 17:14Guy Raz?

  How did you uncover that? Just by looking at research or data and coming to certain conclusions?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Well, looking to see that about 70% of American women are size 14 and above.

• 17:27Guy Raz?

  70%?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  70%. Can you believe that?

• 17:30Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  And the average woman in the US is a size 18. And that what was on offer was dismal in comparison to what was on offer in single-digit sizing.

• 17:48Guy Raz?

  So just to get a sense, because I'm not super familiar with women sizing. If you're, if the average size, women's size is 18 in the US, do most brands and lines offer a size 18?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Um, I don't think so. I think most brands go up to about a size 14. But if you look at high-fashion brands, those brands probably end even lower than that.

• 18:15Guy Raz?

  Wow. So they're basically designing for a minority of women. I mean, basically, a small sector of the consumer base.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And it also is very much binary. So there's brands that offer plus-size fashion. There's brands that offer clothing that goes up to a size 14. And once you have those binary experiences, you always have the have and the have-nots. And what would have been awesome was for Alex and I to be able to shop together in the same section, in the same store, and not have those completely different experiences.

• 19:04Guy Raz?

  All right. So you start to realize that, not just for Alex, but for millions of people, clothes shopping is a painfully difficult experience.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I'd love to tell you that like on that eighth floor of Bloomingdale's, or whatever floor we were on, Universal Standard was born and we started the company. But that would be a complete lie. I think what happened was we, Alex and I started talking and she started sharing all her experiences in terms of shopping, in terms of access, in terms of, she was also a fashion journalist and how difficult it was for her to even attend these amazing fashion shows and not being able to participate, but just look.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  And those conversations led to myself starting to do some research. And basically what I uncovered was what I thought was a tremendous business opportunity.

• 20:16Guy Raz?

  We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, more from Polina Veksler, co-founder and CEO of Universal Standard. I'm Guy Raz. Stay with us. You're listening to How I Built This Lab. Does your team want a website that looks and feels handcrafted but is still fast to ship? Well, Framer is built exactly for that. With Framer, you design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts, hosting, and a CMS built in, so the work is production-ready from day one. And you can get it done with help from Framer's AI agents. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready

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• 24:07Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and I'm talking with Polina Veksler, co-founder and CEO of Universal Standard. So you discovered that there is this huge gap. There is this potentially huge opportunity. I want to ask you about why you think there's this underserved consumer base. My assumption would be that it would be too expensive to have all of these different sizes. And so they're just focusing on a very small selection of sizes. Is that right, or is that wrong?

• 24:38Speaker 01

  I think that's right. I definitely think that one of the reasons this has been the norm in the fashion industry is the fashion industry saying that it's too expensive. But I also think it's what has been considered beautiful and people's definition of beauty and representation.

• 24:59Guy Raz?

  So how big is this market in terms of dollars?

• 25:04Speaker 01

  It's about a $100 billion market, and that's just in the US.

• 25:08Guy Raz?

  Just in the US? A $100 billion market opportunity to cater to all sizes. Wow, that's amazing. All right, so you start to research this. And at what point do you start to say, there's a business here? And go to Alex and say, I think we should do this business.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  So it was an evolving process, but not being employed at the time definitely helped. And we, over the next six to eight months, decide that what we wanted to do was we wanted to create a brand where size was completely irrelevant, where any woman, be that a size two or a size 32, could shop and ask herself, do I like this? Not, does this come in my size?

• 26:05Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I guess traditionally you'd have quote unquote plus sizes. So you wouldn't do that. You would basically just have a line of clothing, and you could just pick whatever you liked, knowing that it was going to be in your size.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's about equal access for all women and allowing all women to shop in the exact same way.

• 26:28Guy Raz?

  All right, so 2015, you founded a company called Universal Standard. How did you convince Alex to quit her job and to leap into this with you?

• 26:39Speaker 01

  There wasn't a need for much convincing. If anything, Alex was very, very keen to do this. She has wanted access to this type of clothing her whole life. She is someone who has a very strong aesthetic and point of view. And she was our original designer of the garments themselves, as she wanted to make clothing that she could wear.

• 27:09Guy Raz?

  All right, so let's talk about how you actually got this off the ground. Because I know that both of you had a little bit of money to just kind of get it started, maybe make a sample or two. From what I understand, one of the first things you did was you went to luxury designers just to see what their designs looked like, to kind of get a sense of what they were making, which was not available in many sizes at all.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  So yeah, what we actually did was we went back to Bloomingdale's and we started looking at clothing that we liked, fabrics that we liked. And because we didn't even know where clothing was made at the time. And what we realized was every time we touched a piece of cotton that we liked, it happened to be from Peru. So we decided that, look, the best cottons must come from Peru. So we are going to manufacture our knits in Peru.

• 28:04Guy Raz?

  All right, so you have a sense of what you want to make. What's the next step? Did you decide to design an entire line? Or were you just going to design dresses, or jeans, or tops? Or what was the first thing that you were going to focus on?

• 28:18Speaker 01

  So we picked a capsule wardrobe, kind of Lego pieces that would fit together. We did eight pieces that could be part of someone's closet that would kind of click in together and make different outfits. And it was pieces that Alex has always wanted to have in her wardrobe. So that was the start.

• 28:42Guy Raz?

  How did you identify a manufacturer that was willing to work with you?

• 28:47Speaker 01

  That was very difficult. As you can imagine, calling various factories in Peru or emailing them and saying that you are a new brand, wanting to do all these sizes, having no experience and wanting to work with them. No one was banging down our door to work with us. But one way or another, we actually made it down to Peru.

• 29:13Guy Raz?

  All right, so Peru has this reputation for making very high-quality cotton and then manufacturing clothing. But you were asking for a manufacturer to make you a line, your first line, and what's the smallest size?

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Our smallest size currently is a double zero, and then we go all the way up to a size forty.

• 29:35Guy Raz?

  Wow. All right, so you're asking a manufacturer to do this. And I would assume that you had a lot of resistance from some of these manufacturers because I think that you have to have different loom sizes to make different clothing sizes, right?

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Yes, there's a lot of infrastructure constraints that we ran into, both in Peru and in China. When we went to China to make sweaters, there were certain factories that said their looms were not big enough to make the type of sweaters we wanted to make.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Fabric widths, when we found the perfect fabric we loved in Italy, the width of that fabric was just not wide enough for some of the garments that we wanted to make. And then there's also the lack of expertise in terms of mannequins and pattern makers and different grading rules. So there's a lot of challenges that we encountered with all the original factories that we went to.

• 30:39Guy Raz?

  All right, so you finally get a factory in Peru to agree to work with you. And this was financed initially entirely by the money that the two of you put into the business?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yes, we each put in a little bit of money and it was enough to finance our first collection.

• 30:57Guy Raz?

  All right, and how long did it take to make those garments?

• 31:01Speaker 01

  It took us about probably six to eight months all in to manufacture the original eight pieces. And we not only ended up working with Peru, but we also worked with some of the factories in New York and then also in China as well.

• 31:24Guy Raz?

  All right, so you come back with garments and roughly how many pieces in each design or in each garment?

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we said, go big or go home. We really wanted to see if we could make this into a true business. So we actually, our first collection was about 3,000 pieces.

• 31:47Guy Raz?

  Wow, all right, so that's a big swing for the fences. And I mean, you wanted to make a line of clothing that was well-designed, high-fashion for everybody and not sort of, you know, out of reach. It wasn't going to be fast fashion, cheap, but it wasn't also, it wasn't going to be like Saks Fifth Avenue expensive.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we wanted to make elevated essentials. We wanted to make clothing that someone could put on a pair of jeans, a plain white shirt, maybe a jacket, go to the store, buy their milk, buy their bananas and feel comfortable and feel like they felt good about what they were wearing and were part of the world of fashion.

• 32:37Guy Raz?

  All right, let me ask you about some of the challenges as you begin to think about pricing, for example. Let's say you're making a garment, a double zero size, pair of jeans, and then you've got a size, you know, 30, right?

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:53Guy Raz?

  The size 30 requires more material, so presumably it's more expensive to make, but both the size double zero and size 30 are the same price?

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It was extremely important for us to look at blended costs and blended pricing and charge the same for each garment. And we were able to do that by kind of resetting the size curve. So for majority of fashion, the sample size, or even looking at a size medium, would be a size eight. And what we said was, look, the average woman in America is a size 18, so that should be our medium, and we would then manufacture clothing up and down from that.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  And then making that size 18 our medium, we were able to blend our costs from the very beginning.

• 33:51Guy Raz?

  Wow, all right. So you basically have 3,000 garments, this is 2015, both of you are in New York, and how do you, how do you sell it? Where did you go to even find people to buy them?

• 34:04Speaker 01

  So, in order to be able to have a democratic, competitive price point to the consumer, we wanted to go direct to consumer. So we were going to try and distribute everything by just building our own website and getting traffic to that website.

• 34:24Guy Raz?

  Which is hard to do, really hard, especially without a big marketing budget.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually took classes on how to set up a website, and I took classes on how to run an ad on Facebook, and what Google Analytics was, and how to send an email, because at that time, I barely knew how to turn on my computer, of course exaggerating a little bit, but definitely did not have the expertise in consumer or...

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Building websites.

• 35:02Guy Raz?

  Wow, you really were building the plane as you were like leaping off the cliff.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Yes, we were lucky enough to work with Shopify. That made it pretty easy.

• 35:12Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So you use Shopify as a platform to build the website, but still, that's not enough. You were taking classes, trying to figure out how to use social media and other, other tools to get the word out, but still really hard. Tell me your first event, like your first sales event, where did that happen?

• 35:31Speaker 01

  So what we were able to do was get some press. And I think that's what helped the most. We were lucky enough to get an article published by Refinery29. And

• 35:47Guy Raz?

  How did you guys do that? Did you just cold pitch them?

• 35:50Speaker 01

  We reached out. We were reaching out to a lot of different publications. And I think through like a connection of a connection of a connection, got connected to a writer at Refinery29 who did an amazing article on us at launch. And we actually ended up selling out of that first collection.

• 36:14Guy Raz?

  Online?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Online.

• 36:15Guy Raz?

  Just through your website?

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Online, on our website, within a very short period of time.

• 36:20Guy Raz?

  Wow. That article alone generated all that interest?

• 36:25Speaker 01

  It was the article. It got picked up by other publications as well. We started getting some more press. But I think also it was the consumer themselves searching us out because of the lack of availability in the market. And also, we quickly realized our thought process of this actually being lacking was confirmed by how quickly the adoption rate was.

• 36:57Guy Raz?

  So you sell out that first line. So you've proved the concept and you know now that this is a viable business. But now to make it really work, this is a capital intensive industry. We've done a lot of fashion on How I Built This. I know it takes a lot of cash to make this work. So I have to assume you started looking for backers, investors.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, we definitely started looking for funding and then it took us quite a bit of time. We didn't know we were going to sell out. We didn't know if this is going to be successful. So we didn't have our second collection planned or what we were going to do next.

• 37:36Guy Raz?

  And probably, just to, just to sorry to interrupt, but even though you sold out all those garments, you probably didn't make a whole lot of money from that because it was the first kind of test.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't think we made any money from it. As our cost to produce it and then investing in PR and social and the website. And also we had to shoot the collection. I think if anything, we probably lost some money.

• 38:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right. So you have to look for investors at this point. This is what, 20, this is like end of 2015, early 2016?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  This is probably mid 2016.

• 38:15Guy Raz?

  Okay. And so where did you go? Where did you, I mean, and how did they respond to your pitch? I would have thought, amazing, wow, you've proved this model out. There's a huge market opportunity to make, you know, all these sizes. I'm in. Is it, was that the response?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Um, that was definitely not the response.

• 38:34Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  I wish. The response was that this is going to be really difficult. And look, they're not wrong because inclusive fashion has traditionally been very difficult, but that it was going to be very costly. The inventory was going to be impossible to manage. Consumers are not going to understand something different and it would require a lot of education. Wouldn't it be easier if you are going to do this? Just do a plus size brand.

• 39:11Guy Raz?

  We're going to take another quick break. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This Lab.

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• 40:45Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest is Paulina Vexler from the size-inclusive clothing brand, Universal Standard. Okay, so you did raise some money. You've raised, what, mainly from friends and family and some angels for the seed round?

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 41:03Guy Raz?

  Okay. Now you've got a little bit of money to work with. What was the first hire that you and Alex made?

• 41:09Speaker 01

  The first hire that we made was a technical designer, so someone who had the expertise on fit.

• 41:17Guy Raz?

  All right, so you found a designer because now you've got to design a huge line. So where did you go to next? Did you just simply expand the line? Or did you double down on what you'd already designed?

• 41:29Speaker 01

  So we did a little bit of both. So the technical designer helped us perfect our fit and our patterns and really allowed us to start fitting on all different sizes, not using the traditional grading rules that have always been used in the industry. And Alex was still the main designer at the time in terms of the styles themselves. And we just continued down the same path in terms of making clothing that she always wanted to have in her wardrobe.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  And also, because we had this lull in product, we were able to really use that time to think about the business and brand that we wanted to be and what was most important for us as we continued building the business.

• 42:26Guy Raz?

  One interesting thing I read was that you started to do these pop-ups at, I think, Nordstrom's. And that really like worked out.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Yes, so what we did was we decided to do some of the guerrilla marketing and grassroots marketing by doing a tour around the country and doing pop-ups at both Nordstrom locations, but also our own pop-ups also in 13 different cities. And we literally-

• 42:56Guy Raz?

  And the pop-ups, you would just rent a space somewhere?

• 42:59Speaker 01

  We would just rent any space, the cheapest space that we could find in a decent location. And we would spend about one or two days in each location. So we would, in the morning, unload our truck and then the evening, load back up the truck and drive.

• 43:17Guy Raz?

  How did you get the word out? How did people find out about those pop-ups?

• 43:21Speaker 01

  We partnered with some of the local universities, local fashion schools. We did partner with Nordstrom as well. We reached out to local influencers. And then also by that time, we did have a very small customer base and just asked them to spread the word. And actually, it was a very funny story of how Nordstrom reached out to us. At that time, both Alex and I had a number of jobs at the company. Mine was picker, hers was packer, mine was customer service agent. And I was taking customer service call at the time.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  And it was a buyer from Nordstrom and I answered the phone and I didn't use my name as customer service. I used a random name called Lucy. I said, hi, this is Lucy. How can I help you? And the Nordstrom buyer said, hi, I'm a Nordstrom buyer. Can I speak with Polina? And I said, can you hold on one second? And I got Polina on the phone.

• 44:28Guy Raz?

  Wow, I love it. And it was literally the two of you running this business. But that's, that's a thing, like a lot of, a lot of people, you know, they don't, behind the smoke and mirrors, they don't know that's just two people, right? And, and but that can be a huge advantage because, you know, you can appear to be as big as you need to be in order to, you know, to, to get taken seriously.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a lot of fake it till you make it at that time. And thus, the various personalities that we concocted in order to seem to be not just the two of us.

• 45:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah, yeah, I love that story. It takes both humility and intelligence to think that way.

• 45:15Guy Raz?

  So, all right, tell me where the business is now. I mean, you are still a small but growing fashion brand in this world of many, many choices, but you're differentiated. I think you're profitable.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yes, we recently reached profitability. When we started this business, we were very, very focused on building a profitable business, and we were steadfast in that approach.

• 45:45Guy Raz?

  And that means growing slower.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  And that means growing a bit slower. So we were still growing at about 60% year over year since we started, but we were never one of those startups that focused a lot on customer acquisition, where we focused most of our efforts was on building loyalty with the customer base.

• 46:09Guy Raz?

  You want repeat customers.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  We want a lot of repeat customers, absolutely.

• 46:13Guy Raz?

  Yeah, and those customers are going to tell other customers, which is also a hugely valuable marketing tool.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and we also believe really, really strongly in our products. So in the early days, and we still do this sometimes, is the way that we really got new customers is by giving out free product. So our main way for probably two, two and a half years of acquiring customers was giving out free T-shirts.

• 46:46Guy Raz?

  Do they say universal standard on them?

• 46:49Speaker 01

  They don't. They're just a plain T-shirt that costs on their website $50, and we were giving them away to customers for free to give them the ability to try a product that was really focused on fabric, quality, fit, and then we were able to get those customers to experience it, and then they would come to the website and try something else.

• 47:19Guy Raz?

  Tell me a little bit about competition. Are you seeing more and more companies try to do this? Or are you still pretty much one of the fewer only ones doing this?

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Inclusivity in this space has definitely increased, and I think that's a wonderful thing. I think that there's still a long way to go. The majority of what's still on offer for double-digit sizing is still fast fashion. We have seen a lot of brands entering the space and expanding their size range. And I think that compared to still what's on offer in the more traditional straight sizing, it's like a pond compared to an ocean.

• 48:10Guy Raz?

  Let's talk about the economics of this for a second, because I know we've touched on this idea of why other brands and companies haven't done this. I know that in 2021, Old Navy tried to do this. They basically started to offer all of its clothing in size from double zero to 30. And it was a big deal, right? Because this was a major clothing manufacturer, but it actually didn't work out well for them. And all their sales went down about 20%. Now, some of that may have been the pandemic and other factors. But as far as you understand, what went wrong for Old Navy? What did they do wrong?

• 48:49Speaker 01

  I'm not sure what they did wrong, but I do believe that in five years or 10 years from now, these brands that are venturing into inclusivity and trying this, they will get it right. Because fashion is only moving in this direction. And inclusivity is the future of fashion. So those brands who, I think, do it early, try it, try it again, I think will be the ones who are going to be positioned to win in the longer term.

• 49:27Guy Raz?

  All right, so tell me a little bit about COVID and how that, I mean, that was probably, you know, could have just collapsed the whole business. I'm sure there was a time where you were very concerned.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Like many other companies, we were definitely impacted by COVID as it relates to office and brick and mortar closures and delays in product. But being a direct to consumer brand and still being relatively small at the number of people in the company, we were able to pretty quickly pivot in terms of what we were offering. So we focused a little bit more on athleisure, on lounge. And we were fortunate to have a very strong e-commerce presence. So while

• 50:19Speaker 01

  we did definitely see an impact, the majority of that impact was in March 2020.

• 50:27Guy Raz?

  Okay. Let me ask about one of the biggest challenges with being in the fashion industry, and you know this, the environmental challenges. This is like, something like 10% of global carbon dioxide output comes from fashion. Much of that from fast fashion, we know, but like, the dyes and the waste is massive. I mean, so much of what we see on the racks in clothing stores just gets destroyed and then thrown away. And so many of the dyes end up in rivers and streams. How do you, how do you avoid some of the worst, you know, environmental effects of manufacturing clothing?

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the main thing that we do is we make quality garments, garments that last wash after wash after wash. So you can wear a t-shirt 50 times and not just two or three times before it's relegated to that sleeping drawer. And one of the other programs that we have that is part of our sustainability efforts is our Fit Liberty program.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  So what we do is we allow our customers to buy for the size that they are today. And then if their size happens to go up or down, we allow them to exchange for a new garment for free. And what we end up doing with the garments that we get back, because they're well-made clothing and they have a second life and a third life, is we work with organizations like First Step and Dress for Success. And so it kind of creates the circular economy of the clothing and at the same time builds loyalty with our customer base

• 52:17Speaker 01

  as they know they can buy for the woman that they see in the mirror and not have to worry about what might happen if their size changes.

• 52:29Guy Raz?

  One of the things that I love about what you guys are doing is your website and and just how you're positioning it and marketing it. And I mean, the models are, everybody looks like somebody you might pass on the street, right?

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 52:42Guy Raz?

  It's awesome. It's like there are very slim models and there are bigger models and there are models with different hairstyles and different features. And it's it's really a completely different, you you notice it when you look at it. It doesn't look like a typical website with these like impossibly slim models.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, representation is really, really important. And allowing the customer to see themselves is really, really important. What we're doing is we're helping change that traditional definition of beauty that most of us have grown up with by what we see on billboards or televisions or in magazines. And by helping change that definition, hopefully it allows the world to be a much more inclusive place.

• 53:39Guy Raz?

  Wow. You very consciously decided not to use the term plus size from the very beginning. There's going to be no plus size. Can you explain why you made that decision? Why that was so important?

• 53:50Speaker 01

  It was really, really important to us because we didn't want to separate women into two different groups. Traditionally, it has been separated for so long. And we thought it would be really, really important to provide that equal access to everyone and give everyone the same exact experience. And even though using the term plus size might have been beneficial in terms of SEO value and search, we wanted to revolutionize the shopping experience and we wanted to

• 54:30Speaker 01

  see if we could create something and show other brands that it could be done in this way and not have to alienate one part of the population or another.

• 54:43Guy Raz?

  All right. So sort of looking ahead now, your whole strategy has been growing slowly and methodically and to become sustainable and profitable. You know, sort of where do you see this brand in the future? I mean, do you see it on the racks at Bloomingdale's? Do you see it as a direct to consumer brand? You know, you have faced skepticism from some investors who said, you know, fashion's just too challenging because, you know, it can be hot one year and then, you know, nobody wants it the next year. But of course, there are plenty of brands that have survived and thrived for forever. How do you see this brand five, 10 years from now?

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Yes, I love universal standard as a brand, but we never set out to be the sole source of size inclusive clothing. We wanted to change the way that fashion has looked at women and women have looked back on fashion. And so since inception, we've tried to lead by example and work with other brands to consistently keep moving this conversation forward. So in the future, we hope to continue to partner with other brands. We hope to continue to show and lead from the front that inclusivity could be done

• 56:07Speaker 01

  in a way that not only supports the customer but is also profitable for the brand.

• 56:15Guy Raz?

  That's Polina Veksler, co-founder and CEO of the size-inclusive clothing brand, Universal Standard. Polina Veksler, thanks so much.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure.

• 56:27Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to How I Built This Lab. Please do follow us on your podcast app so you always have the latest episode downloaded. If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at HowIBuiltThis and mine is at Guy Raz. And on Instagram, I'm at Guy.Raz. If you want to contact the team, our email address is h i b t at i d dot wondery dot com. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson and edited by John Isabella. Our music was composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Our audio engineer was Neil Rouch. Our production team at How I Built This includes Alex Chung, Chris Messini, Elaine Coats, J.C. Howard, Liz Metzger, Josh Lash, Carla Estevez, Catherine Seifer,

• 57:11Guy Raz?

  and Kerry Thompson. Neva Grant is our supervising editor. Beth Donovan is our executive producer. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.