It might sound odd that a Latest York clothing company would determine to open its first store 3,000 miles away in San Francisco.

However the husband-and-wife team behind the Marcella clothing label said San Francisco has been market, they usually were taken with a pedestrian-friendly Fillmore Street with plenty of restaurants and other clothing retailers, including Rag & Bone and Scotch & Soda.

“After we were looking, we actually saw this spot in San Francisco that appealed to us. And our catalog of apparel and accessories works very well there,” said Andy Huszar, the corporate’s chief executive and cofounder along with his wife, Siyana Huszar, the creative director.

On Friday, the corporate’s first retail outpost opens at 2029 Fillmore Street, a 900-square-foot store carrying the brand’s ready-to-wear, footwear and purses. The label’s designs have a minimalist attitude with an edge that’s heavy in solid colours that may go from day to nighttime.

For his or her first step into retail, the Huszars partnered with Leap Inc., an organization that finds locations and operates stores for brands wishing to expand to physical locations.  The Fillmore Street location was previously occupied by Naadam, a cashmere clothing company that also works with Leap Inc.

The Huszars plan to open a flagship closer to home in Latest York City once they’ll find the proper location. Eventually, they hope to have 10 retail stores established in the following two years, they said.

Establishing retail is an enormous step for a brand that started off more as a hobby than a business. Siyana launched her budding clothing collection on Etsy in 2010, when she was working for a bank and just a few years before she met her husband. The aspiring designer, who grew up in Bulgaria, learned her design skills from her grandmother, Marcella Papazian, a clothier who carved out a profession in Bulgaria when women didn’t have as much opportunity as they do today.

Siyana’s business on Etsy grew slowly before it mushroomed. By that point, the Huszars, who met on Match.com in 2012, were still working within the financial world. But Andy saw how well his wife’s side business was doing on Etsy and encouraged her to quit her job in 2014 to grow the corporate. “Then in 2017, when Marcella became the No. 2 grossing fashion brand on the general Etsy platform of two million businesses, that’s once I quit my job,” the CEO recalled.

In late 2019, they launched their very own e-commerce site and have been expanding ever since with production in Bulgaria, where the corporate works with 25 factories and has its own manufacturing facility. All fabric is sourced from nearby countries including Greece, Turkey, Italy and France. Producing in Bulgaria doesn’t require large minimum orders, and shipments arrive in america in 4 to 6 weeks.

With efficient manufacturing and little waste, Marcella’s prices are sometimes 25 percent to 75 percent lower than its competitors. For instance, a slim-fit jersey dress with batwing sleeves is offered online for $98, and wide-legged pleated trousers product of poly/viscose sell for $135. Tops, which make up 30 percent of sales, are present in the $65 to $88 range.

Those prices have helped drive the corporate’s rapid growth. In 2021, Marcella had $9 million in revenues, Andy said. That almost doubled last yr to almost $18 million. “The previous few years have been a wild, wild ride,” Andy admitted.

Managing that growth hasn’t been easy, but it surely helps that Siyana and Andy come from business and financial backgrounds. Siyana has an MBA from Emory University and worked at ING for nearly seven years. Andy has an MBA and a law degree from Columbia University and worked on the Federal Reserve Bank of Latest York and Morgan Stanley for several years.

Despite the wild ride, the Huszars maintain their mission to assist women and girls have a greater life. Marcella partners with the Campaign for Female Education, a non-governmental organization whose mission is to eradicate poverty in sub-Saharan Africa by educating girls and empowering young women. For each clothing item sold, Marcella supports three days of college for a marginalized girl. To this point, the corporate has provided 730,000 school days for ladies.