Private-label apparel is getting an attitude upgrade

Some brands are changing the way they view private labels—and it could reshape their product strategy.

Online subscription service Bespoke Post has more than doubled its private label portfolio from two to five brands in recent years, with owned brands—including rugged apparel gear by Line of Trade and travel bag maker Halfday—contributing more than 50% to its total sales.

“I think in the past, private labels felt more like what the big box retailers were doing, where it was just like a low-cost alternative, whereas what we’re trying to do is create actual brands that have a point of view and a brand ethos, and they’re distinct,” Bespoke Post Founder Rishi Prabhu told Retail Brew.

The trend isn’t limited to subscription boxes; some other brands are also doubling down on apparel in private labels. This year, boho chic fashion brand Anthropologie spun its private label brand Maeve into a standalone brand thanks to its growing popularity. Fashion platform Stitch Fix also told Retail Brew recently that it will be headlining its private label offerings this holiday season, betting that shoppers will be drawn to their mix of quality and value.

Target saw early success within retail private label brands decades ago, particularly in apparel, and continues building that portfolio today. In February 2024, Target launched Dealworthy, a budget-friendly private label brand including apparel. Target’s owned brand portfolio—spanning food, wellness, and other categories—generates over $30 billion in annual sales. Even Nordstrom saw success with its women’s apparel private labels last year.

Label love: In the apparel sector, private label penetration stood at 84.8% at the end of 2024, according to a report by Numerator. While legacy retailers like Target and Costco still look at private labels as a low-cost offering, the industry’s perception of the segment on the internet is getting elevated, and a key differentiator.

“The evolution has been that we’re using customer insights to create products that our customers are going to love,” Prabhu added. Fieldworth is the most recent addition to Bespoke Post’s assortment of private labels that also operates a home goods brand, a kitchen brand, plus Line of Trade and Halfday within its private label offerings.

Brad Jashinsky, director analyst at Gartner, told Retail Brew, “The exciting part for private label is that differentiation…but also it helps to hedge against price matching.”

But private labels aren’t just about price anymore; they’re about personality. Prabhu said the big shift in perception is about building brands that are long lasting: “The new lens is we’re really creating brands that we want to last forever, that could live within or outside of our ecosystem.”

This permanence matters because consumer priorities have evolved, Prabhu added: “And the reason the market has shifted its perception is because consumers—our customers—are really looking for authenticity in brands and that’s the potential competitive advantage here.”

“We’ve let our customer hold our hand, and they pulled us,” he said. “We followed where our customer’s going. We see the categories our customers really care about. We see where there’s white space opportunity, and we see where there’s areas that we think we can create something really great.”

Jashinsky agreed that one of the biggest shifts with the private label landscape in the last few years is the entry of smaller players.

“It used to be your Targets, your Walmart, your Costco,” he said, but ultimately, “the best way to compete, and one of the more profitable ways to compete for retailers is through differentiation. And I think private label brands are going to continue to play a bigger and bigger role in all of that.”