Adore Me is a women’s intimates company based in New York City. The company sells its products in stores and online through a monthly subscription service or as stand-alone products.
History
Adore Me was founded by Morgan Hermand-Waiche. He got the idea for Adore Me in 2010 while in his second year of Harvard Business School’s M.B.A program. He was shopping for a gift for his girlfriend, and couldn’t find an option that he felt was high quality and also within his budget. An affordable alternative became the inspiration behind Adore Me. Hermand-Waiche spent three years working at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company prior to Adore Me.
Initial investors in Adore Me include Hermand Waiche’s Harvard professors, and angel investors Fabrice Grinda and Jose Marin. The company officially launched its website in March 2012. In the same year, Adore Me raised $2.5 million in its second round of funding with investments from Redhills Ventures, Jaina Capital, Ventech Capital, and other US angel investors. Adore Me reportedly sold 100,000 items in their first year of business.
In July 2013, Adore Me raised $8.5 million from investors in a Series B round of funding. Investors included Upfront Ventures, Redhills Ventures, and Mousse Partners.
In 2014, Adore Me was listed as the second fastest-growing private retail company on the Inc. 5000 list based on their 2013 sales of $5.6 million. They went on to generate $16.2 million in sales in 2014.
As of 2015, Adore Me had 88 full-time employees.
In April 2016, Adore Me opened their first retail store as a showroom at their New York City headquarters. In June 2016, Adore Me also began selling products in Nordstrom stores and on Nordstrom’s e-commerce site.
Products and Membership
Adore Me products include lingerie, sleepwear, swimwear, and related apparel. Bra sizes range from 32A to 44G.Current head of design, Helen Mears, formerly worked as head designer of the Angels brand at Victoria’s Secret.
The brand has been compared to Zara regarding pricing and its practice of fast-fashion production. Adore Me uses a subscription-based membership model, known as “VIP Membership.” Members shop through personalized “showrooms.” Products are then shipped free to the customer.
Marketing
Adore Me has used A/B testing to test the performance of its lingerie models. They will test the same product on two different models or the same model with two different poses, and compare sales from each. The company has crowd-sourced customers using polls on its website to determine which product users like best before sending that product into production.
