No HQ, no problem: Inside Ayr’s fully remote design studio
This article is part of our Vogue Business Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to Member-only reporting and insights, our NFT Tracker, Beauty Trend Tracker and TikTok Trend Tracker, weekly Technology, Beauty and Sustainability Edits and exclusive event invitations, sign up for Membership here.
Diane Cha quit her senior job at apparel giant Gap Inc.’s Athleta brand this autumn to take a position as head of merchandising at Ayr, a label with 17 employees and no offices or headquarters.
Ayr is fully virtual, which attracted Cha to the role. Employees work from home in their own US time zones. Cha will work from her bedroom in Orange County, California, with a team spread across three time zones from Ojai, California to Coatesville, Pennsylvania, a town in the state’s Amish territory with a population of 13,000.
Most fashion labels rushed employees back to the office as soon as pandemic restrictions loosened. Ayr, which stands for All Year Round, did the opposite. Known for its sturdy denim and “old soul” classics, the label permanently shuttered its offices in New York’s Noho neighbourhood and told employees to carry on living and working where they please.
Co-founder Maggie Winter and her husband Brice Pattison, vice president of menswear, had met in New York while working at J. Crew in its heyday. They now live and work in a house they bought in Ojai, a rustic small town located east of Santa Barbara.
Three years in, the choice has made all the difference to Ayr’s decade-old operations and is reflected in its revenue growth. Ayr’s annual revenues quintupled over the three years and will top $50 million this year. “All of our meaningful [revenue] growth has happened since we left that studio structure,” says Winter.
When it comes to recruiting, virtual jobs have proven to be like honey for flies. When Mallory Snyder, Ayr’s chief people officer based in Emigration Canyon, Utah, posted an opening for a senior creative manager, she received more than 5,000 applications over the three months that the posting stayed up. Operating virtually has enabled the label to recruit more experienced people, who often have families and are loath or unable to relocate. “Opening up the team to the entire country gives us access to a deep well of talent,” Winter says.
