Fashion expertise comes easy in the Burch family, or so it would seem. Sisters Neely and Chloe Burch, nieces of the famous fashion designer Tory Burch, launched their own accessory company geared towards millennial, working women — and they’re already making a name for themselves as well as their almost one-year-old (this September) brand.
Neely & Chloe immediately grabbed the attention from all kinds of fashionistas due to their sleek, customizable designs on top of the affordable price points. They sell handbags, footwear, wallets, and accessories, all on their shop online.
The sisters just recently opened a Neely & Chloe showroom in TriBeCa as well as just wrapped up an eight city, national tour aboard Ampersand, their brand-customized Airstream, to celebrate their launch.
The tour allowed them to communicate and engage face-to-face and allow the local influencers and customers to come through to show support of the brand, shop the collection, and lastly, meet Neely and Chloe.
Downtown Magazine got the opportunity to chat with Neely and Chloe about their growing business and how they got to where they are today.
Neely and Chloe both started a career in the world of fashion after graduating college and decided to combine their expertise to create a chic and sophisticated, yet attainable collection. Their aesthetics and taste go hand in hand with one another almost completely; however, they have very different strengths and weaknesses in their work styles.
While Chloe is the executor of the bunch, Neely tends to spend more time on the creative side of the business, but they use each other’s strengths and weaknesses to become a stronger company. All in all, they compliment each other and make up a powerful company.
“Having a partner and somewhere to share in all the victories (and challenges) makes all of the ups and downs of starting your own business a little more manageable,” said Neely.
Overall, they strive to be a company known as a trusted source of consistent and reliable style for women. From the beginning, they knew their core consumer would be a woman in the early 20s through mid-30s. And although that is their target consumer, they have all different types of customers.
“What has been really fun is to watch all the other women, younger and older, some focused on fashion, others not so much, to find what they’re looking for in our assortment as well,” Neely stated.
Their uniqueness comes from the ways that so many different types of women can fold Neely & Chloe into their lifestyle because the products are pure concepts where each woman can come and put their individual touch and concept.
They chose to focus on handbags and shoes because “we felt like they were the finishing touches for a woman’s outfit – they’re what take your jeans and a tee from casual day wear to a night out or that LBD from the office to dinner on the town,” Neely said.
Neely’s favorite product is “The Weekender“ while Chloe can’t get enough of her “Travel Wallet“ lately.
With Neely & Chloe being based in New York, we at Downtown love to talk to locals about their favorite places to go to in Lower Manhattan. Chloe keeps up with her fit lifestyle on the Westside Highway and Neely is a sucker for places where she can drink wine and eat sushi. They recommend Momoya, Sushi Katsuei, Smith and Mills, and Weather Up.
The future of Neely & Chloe is looking promising, but for now, they’re focused on “executing our core offering really well – learning what our customers love, and what they’re looking for that we haven’t created yet. We’ll have to see where that takes us,” Neely said.
Their goal is to grow into a brand that is trusted by their customers and one that stands for quality and integrity with timeless design.
When asked for advice for young adults striving for a career in the fashion industry, they both agreed.
“Talk to everyone you can to garner any and all feedback and use it to refine concepts and ideas. With technology and communication the way it is today, it is challenging to break through all of the other noise that’s out there, so you must be creative with how you catch people’s attention and resonate with so much coming at consumers each day,” the sisters said.
Photos courtesy of Neely & Chloe
