Walk, dance, trot, skip. Whatever your feet want to do, there’s a new hosiery brand on the loose with details that will help your feet stand out in the crowd. After all that’s how the babe in the office or that guy at the bar is going to take notice. Made by a brother duo, Ace & Everett is differentiating itself via socks that are backed by thoughtful design and a New York city feel.

Co-Founder, Sage Disch entered the hosiery world with no prior fashion experience. A consultant at Accenture with a background in Sociology from Haverford College, Sage comes from a family of entrepreneurs and is the fourth generation to dance to his own beat with peculiar looking socks on his feet.

“I was working at Accenture when my brother started Ace & Everett via a kickstarter campaign back in March 2014. What started out as weekend meetings slowly turned into a full-time gig as I quit Accenture to start working on Ace & Everett the very next day as its CMO.”

Ace & Everett is a hosiery company that pays tribute to the brother’s grandfather who always paid a lot of attention to the details in his life, starting with his socks. “His name was Everett and his nickname was Ace.” Therefore, the designs of the product are like none you have ever seen before. “Most hosiery designs come in polka dots, chevron, stripe, or statement graphics. We take a more design driven approach and incorporate geometric patterns found in architecture as well as the energy in New York city to create sophisticated pieces that can work from day to night.”

“One of the biggest factors when starting a company is not just what product to create, but who to create it for and why do they need it. You need to communicate the value proposition that makes your company unique as well as how you are going to get customers excited about it.”

Ace & Everett’s customers can be divided into two segments. First, you have the suave finance guy who lives in a cubicle, wears suits and tends to look pretty generic. Ace & Everett offers an opportunity to funk things up by providing a pop of color in a sophisticated manner. Be it at the desk or after work when you need to look your best. Surprisingly, the brand also caters to an elder gentleman in his 40’s and 50’s who is looking to be more fashion forward and express his individuality. Fun Fact: They just launched their women's collection!

While production tends to be a challenge for most fashion startups, it was one of Ace & Everett’s core competencies since the beginning. “Fortunately my brother was able to find a fifth generation family owned knitting mill, Harriss & Covington in North Carolina. They have over 275 employees, have been in business for over a century and really believed in growing with us.” Sage tells us how important it was to solidify this relationship due to their low inventory requirements in the early days.

The Marketing

Content is king. We have all heard this a thousand times, but executing thoughtful content takes an innovative approach. This is just what Sage did by partnering with photographer Humza Deas (224K followers) to snap photographs of legs dangling outside a helicopter, before it became a trend. “This landed us a lot of web traffic and got picked up by BuzzFeed.” Humza has also helped create promotional videos for the brand and bring the Ace & Everett voice to life including the 100 Man March, an annual event held in NYC which encourages customers to wear blazers, briefs, dress shoes and Ace & Everett socks while parading the streets and spreading the love pantless. The boys also engaged in a cross country roadtrip by renting an RV to spread WOM marketing in addition to partnering with our very own RADICHE Makers such as Koio Collective and Sabah to name a few.

To wholesale or not, that is the question?

As a young brand starting out, we always like to say go wholesale first as this will build demand for your supply chain and get you in the eyes and hands of your ideal customer. However, it does depend on your product category and goals. Sage mentions how Ace & Everett started out as direct to consumer for their first year, but quickly pivoted to wholesale via small independent boutiques to create a tactile experience. “Getting the product in people’s hands was half the battle. Long term, I think that there is huge opportunity through e-commerce, but you have to have a great understanding of it and allocate a lot of time and resources towards execution.”

The Advice

The single piece that unifies successful people versus those who are not is the power of persistence. Stick to it!
Once you launch it is important to keep building momentum.
Create milestones to check off along the way and celebrate small wins to motivate you to continue.
Do your research!

Looking to jazz up your Monday outfit? Priced between $28 to $34, Ace & Everett can be found in over 55 stores including Bergdorf Goodman and Theory. Check out their full stock list or “sock list” here. They are also currently hiring for their marketing department. Interested in joining their team? Email us and we will put you in touch.

Photo courtesy of Ace & Everett.