In an increasingly crowded activewear market, few brands have managed to break through the noise with as much authenticity and staying power as TALA. Co-founded by influencer Grace Beverley and led day-to-day by CEO Morgan Fowles, the brand has carved out a loyal following.
Fowles joined TALA in its early stages, bringing with her a wealth of experience from major global fashion players, including LVMH, Farfetch and PVH Corp. Her background spans strategy, brand development and commercial operations – a toolkit that’s proven invaluable in transforming TALA from a digitally native disruptor into a multi-channel business with a flagship on London’s Carnaby Street, growing wholesale partnerships, and a product offer that continues to evolve in line with consumer values.
In this interview with TheIndustry.fashion, Fowles reflects on pivotal milestones, the pressures of scaling without compromising values, how the brand doesn’t encourage impulse buying and why staying close to the customer will always be at the heart of TALA’s strategy.
The brand has carved a space in a highly saturated activewear market. What do you think has set the brand apart from the start?
In industry speak, what has always set it apart is organic social following and engagement. But what that really means, is that TALA is a brand and product range that truly speaks to the needs of its customers.
You started TALA with a strong mission around sustainability and transparency. How has that vision shifted or strengthened with scale?
Doing better and being conscious of our impact in every decision we make about how to produce, ship and package our products, as well as how we run our company generally, is still essential to our mission. Our customer values it, our team values it and it’s the right thing to do. The only thing that changes with scale is that more doors open. Though it’s never easy, because whilst it’s often more effort and more cost, consumers demonstrate they generally won’t pay more for it. Transparency for us translates to sharing how we produce in a lot of detail, why we’ve made the choices we have, and letting the customer decide what’s right for them.
You were early to the sustainable activewear conversation. How do you stay ahead of what consumers expect from ‘ethical’ fashion now?
Being close to our community is at the very heart of what we do and why we’ve been successful. This relates to values conversations like ethical fashion and related topics, as much as it does what she’s looking for from her products, what is getting her attention generally and beyond. We’re in conversation with her all day, every day. This is across our socials platforms, of course, but also in our new retail store, at regular brand events, through data gathering exercises like polls, through our customer service team and many more points of contact.
You joined TALA with a wealth of industry experience. What was your initial direction and how has that evolved?
My initial focus was to build what was an incredibly successful company launch off the back of Grace’s large and loyal audience, into a fast-scaling fashion brand. In the first 12-24 months of my tenure, this meant stabilising the company’s financial position by managing cash and raising venture capital investment, then hiring a great team, expanding the product offering and changing the operating and trading method into a digital DTC scale-up model. It was full on!
In year three, my strategy was laying operational foundations for even bigger growth: migrating our 3PL, setting up frictionless operations in key markets, developing our website and, of course, still building on our team and product offer.
The last 18 months have been characterised by a time of channel expansion, international wholesale, a flagship retail store and raising venture capital again to support those opportunities. It has also been a time of solidifying our brand positioning, still growing the team and building on what customers love about our brand and product across the channels and globe.
What were some of the pivotal moments or turning points during TALA’s impressive growth?
It has been a very exciting ride, so there are many magic moments. The first time I saw the customer response to an exciting product drop – this was the first time we did a logo hoodie – the sales numbers in the first 2 hours blew my mind, even having come from much bigger brands. That was when I first witnessed the power of TALA. Signing an investor term sheet, the first time – in fact, signing a cash advance on a term sheet even, was a pivotal moment in the very early days, because it meant the company would survive! Getting the (usually late evening) call from the recruiter that big hires had signed on, like Darren, our Commercial Director and Jon, our Creative Director, those were exhilarating moments. Signing the lease on our first retail store – our Carnaby flagship – and the day it opened were incredibly special. I still get emotional sometimes walking in there.
Congratulations on opening your first-ever flagship on Carnaby Street! Why was now the right time for a physical retail space?
I’ve always wanted to do retail stores with TALA, but knew we couldn’t do it by half measures. It took a few years to build to that point: being in a financial position to secure and build a unit that was right for us, hiring a team that had the experience to operate and scale it, having a product offer large enough to fill the space, having software and warehousing durability to operate another channel. We also did a bit of a dress-rehearsal, fixturing pads at Selfridges across the country when we launched there a year and a half ago. That gave us the confidence that we could do a physical build, communicate our brand identity in a physical space, and that customers would love it.
Will the Carnaby store be a one-off showcase or the beginning of a wider retail rollout?
Watch this space…
How do you approach growth without compromising these sustainable values?
Growth for us is characterised by reaching more customers and taking a broader share of our customers’ wardrobe, it isn’t in encouraging more consumption. We’re very strict about that in our marketing. For example, we’re transparent with our customers on socials when we know in advance a product or drop will sell out quickly, because we want to offer our most loyal and engaged customers a chance first. It’s the same reason we offer early access sign-ups for our drops, because they do sell out a lot.
On the rare occasion we offer a discount or promotion, for example, we always communicate, “Please only shop with us if you were going to shop anyway.” We don’t encourage impulse buying and believe in the long run, that’s terrible for one’s relationship to the customer as well as the planet. In addition, in the supply chain, it can be difficult to innovate on raw materials when you are small, because you can’t hit the minimums required to make your own fabrics or bags, for example or have negotiating power. So scale means you can innovate in the supply chain more too. The more scale we see for more conscious brands, the better because it means customers are choosing them over non-conscious ones.
Do you see the brand evolving beyond activewear?
Our focus is on true performance, flattering, high-quality quality and multi-use activewear and post-active or low-impact loungewear. That’s really our sweet spot. It extends naturally into categories like swim, outerwear and accessories, which are also big for us. Our customer doesn’t think of being active or being in activewear as one discrete point in her day, however. She layers activewear with non-activewear pieces and moves seamlessly from her morning dog walk in the park, to the office, to coffee with girlfriends, to a pilates class or gym.
We take her from one point to the next in a look that’s elevated, incredibly flattering, amazing quality that holds up over time, and supports her generally diverse and dynamic lifestyle. So, when we’re building the range, we always think about those key layering pieces and mix and match lifestyle and activewear pieces that meet her needs in that moment. But we’re always activewear-focused.
What’s the vision for where TALA will be in five years?
I hope it will look a lot like it does now, just reaching more customers in the UK and around the world. As a brand, team, product offer and mission, we’ve got something very special.