ME+EM Founder and CEO Clare Hornby believes U.S. women are looking for timeless style.
ME+EM
If you are a fan of ME+EM then chances are you may well be a mindful female mid-lifer who previously felt neglected by a youth-obsessed fashion industry.
And, it turns out, if the British modern luxury womenswear brand’s latest results are any indication, then you are far from alone.
The company has been on a quiet ascent for a decade and a half and a formula that has resonated strongly in its domestic market appears to have translated equally well across The Pond, with North America earnings the stand-out in an impressive set of figures released today.
The British brand confirmed its financial results for the year ending January 2025, with earnings up by 24% to $196.4 million (2024: $158.7 million) driven in no small part by U.S. sales which leapt 61% to $62.2 million. Operating profit for the group was up 29% to $26.6 million.
So how has ME+EM found its niche? When Founder and CEO Clare Hornby founded the brand in London in 2009, her mission was to create apparel that was “flattering, functional, forever and fair”.
That simple formula has propelled it into one of the U.K.’s fastest-growing womenswear brands and Hornby’s sights are now set firmly on North America, where ME+EM is pursuing an ambitious expansion that could soon make the U.S. its largest market.
ME+EM Opens In U.S. Cities
The brand’s appeal in Britain was built on a direct-to-consumer model that combined technical design with wearability and it’s an approach that Hornby was convinced would travel well, especially in metropolitan North America.
“ME+EM continues to deliver modern luxury to busy women by putting versatility, exceptional quality and effortless wearability at the heart of every collection. These principles, along with our commitment to understanding our customer, have always been at the forefront of our strategy, and the ongoing success of our expansion in the United States is proof of how this resonates globally,” Hornby insisted.
The Greenwich, Conneticut store is one of a number opening in cities in the U.S.
ME+EM
The company opened its first permanent American store on Madison Avenue last spring, following strong online demand from consumers in New York and on the East Coast. Stores in SoHo and East Hampton followed, with the September opening of a Greenwich, Connecticut store and with Los Angeles slated to follow. The next phase of U.S. growth will include stores in Stanford, California and Atlanta, Georgia, with each location selected after detailed analysis of e-commerce data.
“We don’t open stores for brand awareness, we open them where we know there is a customer base waiting,” Hornby said of the retailer’s strategy.
In its latest results the company said that growth across all categories was driven by an expanded product range, notably in footwear and accessories, while ME+EM also moved into leather goods and bags and saw strong performance from its swimwear collection, launched in May 2024.
ME+EM Expands London Flagship
In its domestic U.K. market, ME+EM also relocated its Marylebone store to a larger flagship location and expanded its original King’s Road, Chelsea boutique, while it opened a new store in Manchester in the north of England in June.
ME+EM has also appointed Nicki Sheard, formerly with BBC Studios, Charlotte Tilbury and Procter & Gamble, as Chief Commercial Officer, and she will take up her role in December 2025.
Not that the strategy is without challenges. ME+EM’s focus on test-and-learn via data, followed by the rollout of physical retail, has helped mitigate some of the risk in expanding into the U.S. but scaling rapidly in North America will require the retailer to maintain brand identity and product quality while adapting to a much larger market.
Its impressive growth figures in the U.S. point to the story being so far so good to date. And for ME+EM continuing to reach that set of mid-lifers who feel that fashion has forgotten them will be key to opening up a potentially far wider and untapped market.
