Berlin-based brand Ivy Oak is ramping up its international expansion — digitally and physically.
The brand, which describes itself as “accessible luxury,” is already carried by upmarket retailers like Liberty of London in the U.K., Rinascente in Italy, David Jones in Australia, Harvey Nichols Doha in Qatar and the KaDeWe department store in Berlin.
“We’ve always attracted significant interest from outside Europe, and now feel like it’s the right moment to connect with those international fans,” Ivy Oak founder Caroline Gentz told WWD in an exclusive interview. “We’re seeing growing demand from customers around the world. This is why we’ve laid the technical and operational groundwork to support sustainable, organic growth in new markets.”
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The brand is also planning moves in the U.S., for example: Its online store is now open to American consumers and the company is also in talks with American retailers.
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A new website now enables Ivy Oak to ship to 200 countries and a newly appointed co-chief executive, Kristin Versümer-Brockmann, will be helping push the global expansion.
Versümer-Brockmann, a specialist in marketing and digital transformation in retail, was previously on the board of Austrian sportswear specialist Sportalm, worked as a head buyer for a shopping club at eBay and, most recently, headed Hamburg-based online store Impressionen. Since August, Ivy Oak has been run by both Versümer-Brockmann and Gentz.
Gentz, who previously worked on Zalando‘s in-house line, Mint & Berry, launched Ivy Oak in Berlin in 2016. The brand’s story began with her grandmother’s tweed blazer, which was passed down to her mother and then to Caroline herself.
“That piece held not just sentimental value, but also embodied timeless style, meticulous craftsmanship and the idea of enduring quality,” Gentz explained.
Gentz decided that she wanted to make clothes like this herself, garments that were not heavily dependent on trends, which would last and could be passed on to younger generations, and that came with what she calls a “care and repair philosophy.”
“While ‘quiet luxury’ is now a trend, it’s been our guiding principle from day one,” she explained.
As a result of that ethos, the company also focuses on sustainability and, because Gentz believes in transparency when it comes to this topic, regularly issues a seasonal impact report that details sourcing and materials.
The brand opened its first store in Berlin in 2018 — which has since closed — and is now stocked in around 100 locations worldwide. Ivy Oak has also dressed more than a quarter of a million brides, Gentz pointed out.
For Gentz personally, being stocked at Liberty’s in London was a particularly pleasing achievement. “London holds a special place in my heart, having lived there as a young designer while working with Alexander McQueen,” she recounted her time as an intern in the U.K.
Although Ivy Oak did not disclose how much the expansion was costing, Gentz told WWD that it was being “funded through a combination of B2B organic growth and strategic private investments.”
Ivy Oak has always had private investors who believed in the brand’s vision, she added.
In previous interviews in local media from 2018, when Ivy Oak launched a financing round, Gentz told journalists that the company had secured funding in the high-single-digit millions.
Reports in German media from 2018 indicate that, at that stage, private investors included the founders of German online retailing giant Zalando: Robert Gentz, David Schneider and Rubin Ritter. They owned 51 percent of Ivy Oak then (Gentz is married to Zalando cofounder Robert Gentz) as well as Danish company Brightfolk A/S, which owned 17 percent of the company in 2018.
Ivy Oak confirmed the Zalando founders and Brightfolk A/S were still involved, but declined to reveal what percentage of the business they now own. The investor register has grown significantly since then, the company said in a statement, and backers now include German e-commerce pioneer Stephan Schambach and the chief executive of premium fashion brand Marc O’Polo, among others.
According to Ivy Oak’s annual financial statement from 2022, the company claimed assets worth around 5 million euros.
“Our long-term vision is…firmly establish the brand as a global player,” Gentz said. “Our aspiration is to build a brand that not only resonates with today’s consumers but also stands the test of time.”