“Normally, you don’t sell a brand and then come back,” she said. Her advice to entrepreneurs hoping to reclaim their creations was characteristically unsentimental: “If you made it once, you can make it again.”
If Baby Phat’s comeback is personal, True Religion’s is increasingly commercial. Having survived two bankruptcies, the denim label expects sales to reach $550 million this year, according to CEO Michael Buckley, with a target of $1 billion within five years. Its owners are reportedly exploring a sale or minority investment valuing the business at close to $1 billion. Nostalgia, it seems, is bankable. No wonder Lee was keen to embroider its jeans with her beloved kitten insignia, which she holds so sacred she has it tattooed on her lower back.
“When people say to us, ‘Oh, back in the heyday of True Religion,’ well, the heyday is now,” chief marketing officer Kristen D’Arcy told Vogue. The company is also, she said, “the largest in sales we’ve ever been, plus the most profitable we’ve ever been.”
Beyond denim, True Religion has courted younger consumers through musicians such as Meghan Thee Stallion, influencers aplenty, and choice collaborations. D’Arcy cited organic appearances by Timothée Chalamet, Kylie Jenner, and Alix Earle as evidence of cultural relevancy, while early access to the Baby Phat offering had already generated strong app sales.
Does it matter than the generation buying into an aesthetic has no firsthand memory of the world that produced it?
For content creator and Love Island USA: Aftersun co-host Tefi Pessoa, the answer is refreshingly uncomplicated. “What True Religion is so good at is ass, and we have lost ass in fashion,” she declared, praising the jeans’ famously flattering rear view. She recalled the vanished mall ecosystem of Baby Phat, Wet Seal, Charlotte Russe, and dELiA*s with affection, crediting Lee as a visionary who paved the way for the likes of Juicy Couture.
