How Tuckernuck Went From Fashion Outsider to E-Commerce Darling

Business of Fashion

3 days ago

Tuckernuck has always been an anomaly in fashion.
For one, the online retailer's home base of Washington, DC is decidedly not a fashion capital. Its preppy, Americana-inspired assortment — shift dresses, cable knit sweaters and floral-printed linen pants — is more likely to appeal to a Congressional staffer than a fashion insider.
Tuckernuck's biggest distinction, however, is that it's growing in the midst of a multi-brand e-commerce slump. Farfetch was sold in a fire sale in 2024 and has yet to recover its once-dominant stature in the space. Net-a-Porter too was offloaded last year at a much depleted value, while Matches Fashion has folded altogether.
While Tuckernuck is a smaller business, over the past three years, it's managed to increase sales by a double-digit percent each year, and expects to do the same in 2025. Named after an island off the coast of Nantucket, the ultra-preppy, ultra-wealthy destination near Massachusetts' Cape Cod, Tuckernuck caters to exactly the customer who summers there or dreams of doing so. It usually draws comparisons to J.Crew, not luxury e-tailers like Net-a-Porter, but its business model is a combination of the two: 60 percent of its product offering comes from third-party brands, while the rest are from its private labels.
Combining Tuckernuck's preppy aesthetic with a hybrid assortment has proven to be a successful formula: In 2021, it hit $100 million in sales. At the same time, its loyal and growing base of customers has made it an increasingly attractive partner for the sort of blue-chip labels that were once wary of the indie platform. In the past 18 months, it's onboarded a handful of brands including Rosie Assoulin, Altuzarra, Erdem in addition to the already stocked Emilia Wickstead, Zimmermann and Polo Ralph Lauren. It also sells pre-owned bags from the likes of Chanel, Gucci and Dior.
'A lot of amazing third-party brands were always skeptical of coming onto our platform. They wanted to be on the majors or nothing at all,' said Jocelyn Gailliot, Tuckernuck's co-founder and chief executive. 'But as there's been disruption with the majors, they've really started coming to us.'
And unlike other online retailers, Tuckernuck has opted for a slower, more sustainable trajectory of growth. Since its launch in 2012, Tuckernuck has not raised any venture capital funding. It operates one store, a 700-square-foot shop that opened in 2016 in Washington, DC's Georgetown neighbourhood.
But that's starting to change. The company, Gaillot said, is at 'a big inflection point.' This month, Tuckernuck is opening its second brick-and-mortar location, a shop on Manhattan's Upper East Side, located at Madison Avenue and 84th Street, with more stores in the works as well as plans to boost its tech infrastructure to support growth in e-commerce.
Tuckernuck's path offers a new blueprint for what it takes to stand out in a sea of multi-brand offerings online: Start with a defined point-of-view, rather than the generic for-the-masses approach; build and develop tastemaker relationships over the years; and sell a mix of aspirational and attainable products, including private labels that boost the bottom line. Entering the Fashion Mainstream
Tuckernuck's first viral moment in fashion carried a trace of controversy. Last year, its private label's popular Jackie Dress, a tweed shift with gold buttons and a braided collar, made headlines after it became something of an unofficial uniform for young female staffers at the Republican National Convention.
Given its headquarters, Tuckernuck has long had fans on 'both sides of the aisle' on Capitol Hill, said Gailliot. But Jackie's ubiquity is just a sliver of Tuckernuck's story.
When they launched Tuckernuck in 2012, Gailliot and her co-founders, her sister Madeline Grayson and longtime friend September Votta, struggled to raise capital, getting an infusion of less than $500,000 from a small friends-and-family round and a grant from incubator 500 Startups. None of them had a background in fashion or retail. Grayson and Votta had co-founded a short-lived social commerce startup for college students called UScoop, while Gailliot had spent a decade in investment banking.
What they did have was a deep understanding of their core customer: a woman who may not keep up with runway shows, but 'wants to still feel confident and stylish in a classic Americana way,' said Gailliot.
'We were all doing our shopping at big single-label retailers like J.Crew and we'd show up wearing the same things from head to toe,' Gailliot recalled. 'We just really felt like there had to be an in between, a one-stop shop for busy women, curated with new brands and big names styled all together delivered in a really fast, easy way.'
Tuckernuck's approach to brand curation is less about courting the biggest names possible and more oriented toward discovery, allowing consumers to stumble upon new labels that align with their idyllic coastal lifestyle. This assortment includes both legacy names like waxed-jacket maker Barbour and New York-based designer Ulla Johnson, but also Colombian brand Agua by Agua Benita and London-based resort label Juliet Dunn. Tuckernuck's founders, Jocelyn Gailliot, Madeline Grayson and September Votta (Courtesy Tuckernuck) Clothes for the Modern Prep
This brand matrix formula has attracted both new shoppers and wholesale accounts. Brands have increasingly been drawn to its 'unique way of blend approachable fashion with a clear point of view,' Lela Becker, president and co-founder of Mother Denim, which is stocked at Tuckernuck, said in an email.
'Their effortless aesthetic and strong connection to their customer makes them stand out in a crowded retail space,' she added.
Influencers, particularly preppy bloggers like Carly Riordan and Mackenzie Horan, served as some of the retailer's earliest — and most important — advocates. This was partly out of financial necessity, as influencers were a low-cost way to market back then. But Tuckernuck's founders also saw the power of word-of-mouth, tapping friends and nearby Georgetown students early on to serve as models, who would tell everyone from their classmates to their moms about the brand.
'A lot of more traditional brands were reluctant to adopt influencer marketing and Tuckernuck was the opposite of that,' said Riordan, who today counts Tuckernuck as her top-performing retailer via affiliate links. 'They saw that this is where the modern young customer is going for shopping recommendations,' she added.
Influencers remain a major buzz-building tactic for Tuckernuck, rolling out collaborations with creators like Blair Eadie and Shea McGee.
Above all else, the three founders make decisions driven by their own preferences and taste. In 2019, they launched their first private label because they saw a lack of brands catering to their modern preppy consumer that hit below a $300 price point. The idea was to create items that complimented rather than competed with their third-party brands. Best-sellers include a $298 eyelet shirt dress, $248 cashmere cardigans that can be monogrammed and a $138 gingham golf dress. Representing 40 percent of its assortment and 70 percent of sales, it's resulted in a higher profit margin for the business.
'Once we launched that complimentary relationship between the third party and the private label, we were able to really start to scale in a profitable way,' said Gailliot. Tuckernuck Goes to New York
While private label represents the bulk of sales, Gailliot said her company is committed to being a multi-brand retailer first, with third-party brands making up 60 to 70 percent of the total assortment.
'Maybe the margins would say you should [focus entirely on private label], but that's something that we'll absolutely never do,' she said. 'The third party brands are so important and exciting.'
The focus remains on providing value. Tuckernuck may sell $2,000 designer dresses for a customer looking to splurge for a special occasion, but 'you won't see us putting $400 T-shirts on the site,' said Gailliot.
Retail expansion will play a major role in Tuckernuck's next chapter. Its 700-square-foot Georgetown location was a way to test out brick-and-mortar, but the new Upper East Side location will offer a different experience, meant to emulate an old-school neighbourhood specialty store with in-store personalisation and eventually, same-day delivery for local shoppers. Store associates will be encouraged to develop close relationships with top clients. It won't take another nine years for the next shop to arrive, with plans to open at least one more retail location in 2026. Beyond D.C. and New York, top markets include Chicago and Dallas.
Success on the Upper East Side is not guaranteed. Tuckernuck enters a competitive shopping destination that has attracted top-tier tenants like downtown cool-girl brand Khaite, Brazilian label Farm Rio and Tuckernuck-stocked Staud.
Gailliot, who now lives in the neighbourhood, said she is confident Tuckernuck will appeal to both locals and tourists. Perhaps its advantage lies in its multi-generational appeal: while consumers 25 to 40 years old make up its key demographic, its customer base ranges from recent college graduates (a growing cohort) to retirees.
'They're just getting more and more in touch with their customer base, and drilling deeper into that,' said Riordan. 'They've embraced this beautiful editorial style, while also staying true to who they are.'