Bailey Mark

A passion

FORfashion

Mother and daughter Dio Old Girls Bailey Mark (2007) and Trish Mark (Scown, 1975) have combined their extensive experience in the apparel industry to start a business together. In March 2020, they launched Marlow, a premium women’s athleisurewear brand. We spoke to Bailey about why she created Marlow and the triumphs and challenges of the past two and a half years.

How did you first get into the fashion industry?

Having grown up with my mother in the industry, I was fortunate enough to begin working in fashion from a young age. During the school holidays, when I was about 12 or 13, I used to work in the warehouse packing orders for companies Mum worked for. I worked alongside the quality manager for Line 7 and Canterbury doing the quality checks, and I learnt so much. Mum would take me on buying trips to China, or we’d see all the great samples and textiles on her return. I was immersed in the industry from a very young age and grew to love fashion and fabrics.

After I left Dio, I did a BCom in marketing at the University of Auckland. I was fortunate to jump straight into a fashion marketing role, which really kick-started my career. At 23, I moved to London for four years, and it was always my dream to work in fashion on a bigger scale. It was hard yards initially but persevering certainly paid off. The travel and networking opportunities were fantastic. I often chat with many of my London-based work colleagues to check in on the latest Northern hemisphere trends. I had an extensive career working for some of the world’s most successful fashion brands including River Island, Miss Selfridge, Glassons, The Warehouse and Moochi. As global wholesale e-commerce manager for River Island, I was exposed to the biggest e-commerce traders on the planet: ASOS (UK), Rocket group (Netherlands), Amazon (UK/US). It was exhilarating and fast paced when e-commerce trading was hitting its stride pre COVID.

All these brands and clients taught me a different aspect of the industry – sales, marketing, design, sourcing and

Bailey Mark

e-commerce. I’ve transferred those skills into starting my own brand. I have a very commercial understanding of the industry and I’ve learnt what women want and how they like to shop.

Is Marlow your first clothing brand?

Yes, it is. It’s been a dream of mine to start my own business. I thoroughly enjoy having control over the daily business decisions and I love the flexibility of running my own schedule. I also love working with talented people, and in the fashion industry you can’t go a day without meeting one of those.

We established Marlow during COVID after we identified the need for more premium athleisurewear. It’s been an exciting journey and I’m proud of how far we have come in such a short time. We have three retail stores, 10 stockists across New Zealand, and our marlowstore.com website. We’ve been running on a treadmill since we launched to keep up with the demand and we’re so grateful for all the support we’ve received.

What’s your role at Marlow and who else is part of the team?

I’m the director and co-founder of Marlow. My role spans design, marketing, retail, wholesale, finance and operations. I have an amazing designer who, along with my mother, has helped to form the essence of the brand. We work closely on all the collections. It’s been important to surround myself with experienced and passionate people. As we grow, we’re building a great team of industry professionals. I spend as much time as I can in store helping advise customers on styling and aftercare of our range.

My mum, Trish, is my business partner. You won’t find anyone in New Zealand with more knowledge about garments and fabrics. She’s a huge asset to the business – without Mum, we wouldn’t be here today. She drives all the production, shipping and logistics. She’s also my sounding board with everything. Our skill sets balance nicely and being different generations, we know how to talk to a wide audience. My dad has also been a huge help as we’ve developed our retail stores. Dad does the heavy tasks and manages our shelving and instore needs. He’s a huge help logistically, as is my brother. It’s been a huge family effort getting Marlow off the ground and I’m grateful for all the help.

How would you describe the essence of the brand? What type of woman wears Marlow?

Marlow is premium athleisurewear – simple, sleek and effortless pieces for modern contemporary women to wear year-round. Our clothing is designed to be an anchor in your wardrobe; timeless, beautiful and practical pieces that make you feel confident and chic. They all have an easy luxurious look and cover activewear, knitwear and loungewear. Our colour palette is neutral, timeless and trans-seasonal and every item is underpinned by a strong sustainability ethos. Marlow customers range from 25 to 75 but are primarily 35 to 55. They’re corporate professionals, stay-at-home mums, and yoga and pilates teachers.

A pandemic is a tough time to start a new business. Did you worry it might be a bad idea?

I took a huge risk and started Marlow during the first lockdown in March 2020. COVID gave me time to think clearly and make sure we got the essence of the brand right. It also solidified the thinking around a shift in clothing needs as people settled into a new way of life. Our product is leisurewear and that’s what everyone wanted. People needed clothing to transition from exercise to working at your desk, then maybe being on a Zoom call. We saw Marlow could fill that space.

We launched Marlow as a predominantly e-commerce business. COVID definitely made the growth of our online platform even more vital. We put all our efforts into our online store to ensure customers had a positive online shopping experience when they couldn’t necessarily visit a physical store. We had some challenging months, with our stores closed for 14 weeks. But we saw a 300% increase in sales online during the lockdowns, and we gained a lot of customers through our online channels.

What have the last two years been like with Marlow?

It was scary at first, not knowing the impact COVID would have on New Zealand brands and retail. But we’ve had incredible support from customers who bought local brands and spent money domestically when they couldn’t travel and buy clothing overseas. Our online store became a priority and it’s our focus going forward. We ship worldwide and send orders all over the world. I’ve certainly had a vertical learning curve in terms of being flexible and learning to maximise what you can control to retain profitability.

We mainly source all our materials and fabrics from the Far East. With COVID, we’ve had to adapt our communication. We video call our factories weekly and use WhatsApp and WeChat. Our factories are very good at sending us the latest fabrics and yarns to view. We’ve faced issues around our supply chain and the dramatic rise in shipping costs. We’ve had to pull our production timelines forward to accommodate the longer lead times. I’m fortunate that Mum has been in the garment industry for over 40 years, and we have a supply base that’s seriously exciting. Our knitters, jacket makers and activewear suppliers are world class and we love what they’re producing for us. They believe in our brand and want to support our journey. A lot of our suppliers are family-owned businesses too, so we have close relationships with them.

During lockdown in 2021, we started marketing to Australia and we’re now seeing great traction over the ditch. Our current focus is to grow domestically before we scale our international growth.

Where do you want to take Marlow? What’s your vision for the next few years?

We have so many exciting domestic and international plans for our business. But we have to walk before we can run. In saying that, what we’ve achieved in 16 months is pretty phenomenal really. I’m very driven; I thrive on new challenges. Right now, we’re making sure we have the right team on board to service our growth and product development plans. Our biggest focus is growing our e-commerce customer base globally and nurturing our local customers by engaging with them through local activations and in-store experiences throughout New Zealand.

We want to expand our range and secure more retail sites if the right locations become available. We’re dying to get up to our factories to visit them and continue to build relationships with our suppliers and our fabric mills. My goal is to dominate the online space for leisurewear. We have some amazing collabs coming up. This is a journey I’m 100% looking forward to. I’m eager to experience all the highs and the learnings from the lows.