How Anine Bing became a fashion powerhouse

Sourced: Forbes Magazine

Anine Bing launched her eponymous brand in 2012 out of a garage in Los Angeles with her husband, on a mission to create pieces that represented her unique style. Today, the brand is a global powerhouse that fuses a European aesthetic with vintage Americana — and boasts an engaged social media following of women who are inspired by Bing’s aspirational yet accessible allure and entrepreneurial instincts.

There are several factors that contributed to the phenomenal growth that “It” fashion label Anine Bing continues to experience.

For starters, Anine Bing, the model / musician / blogger turned designer and female founder has made a case for being the walking personification of your brand, as she designs and creates the items she would wear herself. Call it perfect authenticity or a razor-sharp ability to predict what her target audience wants to wear — or both — there’s a reason the brand has become one of the most sought-after labels for women seeking effortless essentials with edge.

“I was modeling and traveling the world, and I also had a blog at the same time, where I reported back to my friends in Scandinavia,” Bing explains. “That following grew into something bigger and everyone always wondered what I was wearing and where they could find my vintage pieces. I always had a unique style and was pretty good at finding vintage mixed in with current brands.”

Bing combined her European roots (she was born in Denmark) with a hint of vintage rock ‘n’ roll to create a wardrobe that became the original collection of essentials when the brand first launched in 2012.

Bing continues: “Through my blog and then my Instagram posts, I recognized the power of women wanting the items I was wearing and posting about. I think I saw the opportunity in starting my own brand in 2012 thanks to that.”

Let’s slow our scroll for a minute and focus on a key trend that was on the rise in 2012: Instagram. (This was also the year that Facebook acquired Instagram.)

While Instagram, the visually-based social media channel that was perfectly tailored for fashion influencers to share their looks skyrocketed in popularity in 2012, it also became the perfect platform for Anine Bing — who had already accumulated a significant following of her own as a blogger and model — to share the curated collection she had just created with her husband, in their Los Angeles garage.

“We did it out of my garage, without telling anybody about it at the time. I just wanted to do it my own way, without any opinions from other people around me. We had produced a few hundred items of each style in Turkey, where my husband had some manufacturing connections, and since I had a little bit of a following on my blog and on Instagram already, I basically said, ‘Hi everyone, I launched this brand, check it out!’”

The company was originally funded by Bing, who now serves as founder and chief creative officer, and her husband Nicolai Nielsen, who is founder and chief executive officer.

When Bing says that rolling up her sleeves and getting to work was one of the keys to her success, she walks the talk: in the brand’s early days, Bing and her husband would pack orders themselves.

Back then, the husband and wife duo did it all themselves, from designing the entire collection to packing the orders and managing customer service. “It was really hands-on from day one,” Bing shares.

“Nothing is ever too big or too small to do — this is something I learned from my husband. You need to know every aspect of your business in order to then hire people, and guide them on how to run the business. I have a better understanding of every team in our headquarters today because I've been on each of those teams myself. I think it's important to be ready to work really hard and have your eyes open, ready to learn everything.”

Another key that Bing attributes to the brand’s success is the fact that it launched with a very curated collection of essentials. “We launched with very few products at first, with about 10 to 12 pieces. I always loved denim and effortless vintage T-shirts and leather jackets, so those were included.”

Today, the brand sells a full fashion range on its e-commerce site (and releases new items every Tuesday), in retailers worldwide, and in 15 of its own standalone brick and mortar stores, from L.A. and New York City to London. The brand opened three new stores in 2019 (Hamburg, San Francisco and Sydney), with more to come in 2020.

Bing had felt a positive momentum ever since launching more than seven years ago. She knew the brand was resonating with the fashion crowd early on, when top influencers and stylists were rocking her items.

“Already a couple of months into the brand’s launch, all the stylists started requesting the pieces for their celebrity clients, and amazing little boutiques in L.A. and around the world wanted to sell it in their stores. That's when I realized this is not just a little garage business — this can be something bigger. It's been a super exciting journey.”

Another key milestone in the journey of the retailer is its $15m Series A funding, which was completed in 2018 with equal participation from Index Ventures, Greycroft Partners and Felix Capital.

The line has also extended to include a children’s collection, which again is authentic to Bing as the mother of two young children. When the brand launched, her daughter was one and half and she was pregnant with her son. With the help of meditation and focusing on being present with each task — whether on a work trip to Europe or during dinner and bedtime at home with the kids — Bing has managed to balance it all with grace.

“I'm not saying it's easy to run a business and be a mom, but I think it's possible,” she shares.

Bing has also become a regular panelist on the female founder conference circuit, and she shares her career tips on the Anine Bing brand’s social media channels as well. As a result, entrepreneurship and career advancement have become part of the brand’s ethos. The power of intuition is one of Bing’s key mantras:

“I have one mantra that’s tattooed on my arm, which says, you know when you know.  I follow that in life and in business. There are always so many voices around you who tell you what the right thing for you to do is, but I really always try to go back to my gut feeling, which I've been doing since day one and still do seven years in the business, and really listen to what feels right for me. And 90% of the time, I really think it's true. I want to encourage women to listen to themselves — we all have a really good gut feeling and if we’re brave enough to listen to it, it can really take us far in life and in business.”

Up next for Anine Bing? More store openings and brand collabs, which is an element that Bing is super passionate about: “I love collaborations because I love working with other creative people within different fields.”

The brand is fresh off the heels of a successful capsule collection with photographer Terry O'Neill, who suddenly passed away the weekend before the collection launched, in November 2019.

That collaboration is also close to Bing’s heart, as it prominently featured an iconic Brigitte Bardot image, which is a signature of the Anine Bing brand and the designer’s aesthetic.

“Brigitte Bardot represents that effortless, cool woman. When I design, I want the women wearing my brand to feel like themselves and feel cool. To dress for themselves and not for others.”

Another one of Bing’s goals, as her business continues its upward trajectory?

“To continue growing as a person, as a leader, and as a designer. I’m super grateful to do what I do, and I feel lucky that I love it.”

Image via Forbes Magazine.