LA brand Agolde rode the post-pandemic jeans resurgence, becoming synonymous with premium denim of all shapes and styles. Now, the brand wants to conquer the rest of the closet.

“Of course, we launched with denim,” says chief executive Amy Williams. “But at this point, we’ve evolved into more of a contemporary collection brand.”

Originally founded by “the godfather of Denim” designer Adriano Goldschmied and the retail pioneer Ron Herman in the early 1990s, the brand was later relaunched by Jérôme Dahan, a co-founder of Citizens of Humanity. The brand built its reputation on high-waisted, ’90s-inspired silhouettes and rigid fabrics — an approach that cemented its position in premium denim before its more recent expansion beyond it.

That shift is now material to the business. Today, roughly 40% of Agolde’s revenue comes from ready-to-wear, including knitwear, outerwear, shirting, and vegan leather. While the brand has long offered basics like T-shirts and non-denim jackets, it only formalized its ready-to-wear at the start of 2026, when it significantly expanded its assortment. The business now generates mid-eight figures on its own, scaling quickly from a supporting role to nearly half of the brand.

Several premium denim brands have attempted to build out ready-to-wear alongside their core categories. Rag & Bone has had some success doing so, while others, including Frame, remain more closely associated with denim despite selling other categories. The challenge is getting customers to come back for more than jeans — something Agolde appears to be doing at a faster clip.

“Denim is one of the most natural launchpads in apparel,” says Kristen Classi-Zummo, an apparel industry advisor at Circana. “It’s the foundation consumers build outfits around.” The brands that succeed in growing beyond it, she adds, are the ones that treat adjacent categories as an extension of that foundation, rather than a departure. “When the foundation stays intact, the expansion feels authentic to the consumer — and that’s what drives repeat purchasing across categories.”

Agolde’s world

For Williams, the expansion was, in part, about building out the brand world in a more complete way. “I think with any great brand, you close your eyes and see a very clear DNA for it,” she says.

Retail partners, including Selfridges, Net-a-Porter, and Bloomingdale’s, have quickly bought into this approach, carrying a broader mix of categories and merchandising Agolde accordingly — not just as a denim line, but as something closer to a full wardrobe.

The brand’s first flagship store is the latest step in its shift to a full-fledged fashion brand. Agolde opened its first standalone location on Melrose Place in Los Angeles this week, with a second in New York’s Soho slated for 2027. Longer term, the company is planning for 10 to 12 global flagships across markets like London and Paris. “With our own stores, we can show the brand in totality,” Williams says.

Agolde’s wider product assortment is already changing how its customers shop online. The brand’s e-commerce business is up more than 35% year-over-year, with both traffic and sessions up more than 20%, says Williams. Baskets are increasingly made up of multiple categories — denim alongside tops, outerwear, and non-denim bottoms — rather than a single purchase.

It’s for this reason that moving beyond denim can strengthen a brand, says Classi-Zummo, giving it greater ownership of the customer while insulating the business from any trend shifts away from jeans. “A denim-only brand is a category stop — a brand that can outfit a consumer head to toe becomes a destination,” she explains. “Instead of losing that customer to another label for tops or outerwear, the brand captures more of the lifetime value.”

Crucially, Agolde’s direct-to-consumer growth is not happening at the expense of wholesale. That segment of the business is up more than 10% year-over-year and continues to perform strongly across its top accounts, even as parts of the department store channel have contracted.

“We’re not looking to shift away from wholesale,” Williams says. “It’s complementary.”

Menswear is also coming into its own as an important part of the business. Launched less than three years ago, the category is scaling quickly, with sales up 359% year-over-year. Much of that growth is being driven by direct traffic to Agolde’s own channels, as the brand gains visibility through working with athletes and celebrity stylists.

“In the last few weeks, we had a few NBA players wear pieces during the tunnel walks, as well as the guys from Heated Rivalry,” Williams says. “We see a direct impact from that on our website.”

The idea to launch menswear came out of something unexpected: men buying from the women’s line because they liked the fits and silhouettes. It was “an aha moment”, says Williams, that seems to be paying off.

Looking ahead, Agolde is focused on continuing to build out ready-to-wear with more differentiated fabrics and is in the process of hiring its first dedicated menswear designer. Amid these shifts, the company is projecting double-digit revenue growth across its brands in 2026.

“We have a highly profitable business that is not based on discounting or anything that might flood the channels,” Williams says, noting that just 1% of the business was sold through off-price last year. “We continue to keep the business really clean.”

The company also sees expansion opportunities across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, but is prioritizing a more measured rollout.

“The world is in such a difficult place right now, so we’re being very thoughtful and methodical about where we grow,” Williams says.

That caution comes after a post-pandemic rebound in denim, which helped fuel the brand’s recent growth but also marked the end of a period that underscored the importance of building beyond it.