Fashion Nova is the #1 searched fashion brand on the Internet according to Google. The affordable fashion brand took the #1 spot over Louis Vuitton (#2) and Versace #3.
In lieu of spending millions of dollars on marketing, Fashion Nova recruited popular celebrities and influencers with millions of followers to market their brand to teenagers and young adults.
Fashion Nova’s Instagram account has 14 million followers.
Celebrity endorsers include songstress Cassie Ventura and rapper Cardi B, who received $20,000 a month to model the clothes in 2017.
Reclusive company CEO Richard Saghian grew the brand from a one-man operation to over 525 employees working out of the company’s spartan headquarters near Los Angeles.
The company built a reputation for its popular high-wasted jeans, which retailed for $35.
Saghian turns his nose up at well-established high-end fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton.
“Overpriced fashion is dead,” he told WWD in a rare interview in 2017.
But for all its successes, Fashion Nova is not without its critics.
The Better Business Bureau has received thousands of complaints about the company’s business practices.
Complaints range from slow deliveries to missing clothing or the wrong items when the orders do arrive.
One dissatisfied customer wrote:
“I want my money back. Fashion **** still advertising and saying 2 days shipping what is going on? I been calling them but there’s no real person, you can not leave message either, I commented on their Instagram page but it was ignored and deleted.”
Unlike the clothing modeled in high quality photo shoots, customers complain that the actual clothes they receive are a far cry from what is advertised.
Saghian shrugs off negative reviews about his brand, which he says he plans to keep private without outside investors.
“A lot of my competitors have teams that work on a budget all day and are obsessed with profit margins,” said Saghian.
“I don’t want to focus on that right now. I believe that as long as we focus on giving the best product at the best price and getting it to our customer fast, we will continue to grow. Right now the focus is getting as many people onto the platform as possible.”
Photo by Getty Images
