How Shea Marie Built Same Into a Rare 'Influencer Brand' Success Story
After six years of grinding in the fashion media landscape — first as a blogger, then as an influencer — Shea Marie intuitively questioned what her future held. As she tells Fashionista, she was "very cautious" about how long social media would be around and wanted to create something "longer lasting."
So, naturally, she started a fashion brand: In 2015, Marie co-founded Same, a Los Angeles-based, trend-forward swimwear line that also works as luxe, everyday wardrobe pieces.
It wasn't easy. At the time, the influencer-turned-brand-founder space was uncharted waters with no blueprints for Marie to work off of. "It was me learning everything from scratch," she reflects. "Today there are all these incubator companies that help you build a brand and they teach you every step of the way and you don't have to be involved in everything."
Still, she knew she had an idea worth fighting for. "Swimwear was very different back then," she says. "It was very simple, it was very basic. It was meant to be covered up. [My co-founder Ryan Horne and I] had this mission of making swimwear a true fashion category." Upon its launch, Same quickly solidified itself as a brand to watch thanks to its support from It girls like Kaia Gerber and Hailey Bieber. Over the following few years, Marie landed Same in major luxury retailers like Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Selfridges and Harrods. That said, while Same was making strides, Marie saw it as "more of a passion project" as she focused on her influencer career.
The shift came in 2020: During the pandemic, all the retailers pulled out their orders, leaving Same with too much excess inventory and Marie in panic mode. Rather than shutter the company, she saw this daunting moment as her sign to commit full-time.
"We didn't know what was going to happen to the company," she says. "But, during Covid, women weren't spending all their money on dresses and shoes." They were however, spending time at beaches and pools in the warmer months, she notes. In other words, swimwear was in high demand, and Same answered the call.
Nearly all of that growth has been organic: Marie credits much of it to the product itself: fashion-forward swimwear that she believes "started [many] of the biggest swimwear trends over the past decade" and took the category "to a new level." There's also Same's loyal social media following — nearly half a million on Instagram — that "pushes so much of the sales and revenue." It's difficult to measure how much its celebrity clientele placements — including Kendall Jenner, Vanessa Hudgens, Addison Rae, Leonie Hanne and Dixie D'Amelio — convert to sales, but it does help with "visibility," "brand awareness" and "legitimization." Same's "huge network of influencers" is more impactful, she says.
"Especially in the height of summer, we're getting tagged in hundreds of posts a day and that's people just buying the suits, wearing them and tagging them themselves. The value of that is just unbelievable. If anything, that is what is really fueling the growth of the company now, is that UGC content," Marie shares.
Of course, Marie leveraged her own content creator experience to help maximize Same's social footprint. With no advertising and marketing budget in the early days, having her own following was "definitely an advantage" and "invaluable" for growth.
That's not to say her influencer background didn't present obstacles: "People have always been hesitant of influencer brands," Marie acknowledges — especially a decade ago when it wasn't as respected of a career. It's why she decided not to be the face of the brand, so the focus can be on the products' "quality" and unique offerings.
"I always wanted to be behind-the-scenes [as] the designer [and] creative director," she confesses. "I think it shows people that it's not a quick cash grab and it's not me trying to splash my image."
It still begs the question of how Same remains steady amid an unforgiving market that's seen too many influencer brands come and go. Marie's guess? Her hands-on approach combined with consumers' brand loyalty.
"There are a lot of people that just come and put their name on a project and they're very minimally involved," she explains. "I oversee everything. There's nothing that I don't do. There's no job that's too small or too big. I would never put out something that I didn't love and I wouldn't wear on my own [...] We built a longstanding reputation of having high-quality, beautiful swimwear and being trendsetting, cool and one of the It-girl brands."
Customer-favorite styles include rosette-adorned designs, corseted one-pieces and vintage-inspired bikinis. Pricing ranges from $95 to $495. The trend-infused designs speak to the inherent ready-to-wear spirit that lives within Same's swimwear offerings. So it wasn't a big leap for the brand to officially enter the ready-to-wear category earlier this summer. Styles include denim, dresses, skirts, loungewear and knit tops.
"It is really hard for a swimwear brand to move into ready-to-wear. The natural progression for a lot of swimwear brands is activewear or leisurewear. We were in a very unique position because we have built a decade of a reputation of being a trendsetting, cool, fashion-forward swimwear brand to where we are able to move that into the ready-to-wear space and people are going to expect the same level of quality and trend innovation from us," she says of the decision.
In July, Same released its Ruffle Collection — its first ready-to-wear capsule — which has since sold out three times. Pricing is comparable to its swim category, ranging from $115 to $425.
While the expansion has introduced new customers and opportunities, it also created a fresh set of challenges: The production process for ready-to-wear is a whole different ball game.
For ready-to-wear, Same works with international vendors in China, India, Turkey, Italy and France. (Swimwear is produced in Mexico and L.A.) Marie's biggest learning curve has been dealing with ready-to-wear's slower pace. "We've been doing swimwear for so long [...] and we are able to make samples really fast," she says. "With ready-to-wear and working with factories all over the world, even the shipping times to go back and forth between different samples can add an extra month every time you do another round. I'm not used to those kinds of delays."
For all the hurdles, though, building these relationships abroad better positions Same for its next step in growth: international expansion. The brand opened a warehouse in Australia last year — and plans to open another in Europe — to "better service that part of the globe."
"The idea here is that customers in those areas will be offered quicker shipping, less of a hassle with customs and other logistics like that," she says. Reestablishing Same's stockists is another target Marie is gearing up for, which is "also a marketing play" to get additional international eyes on the brand. Currently, Same has a wholesale account with Mytheresa. For longevity, Marie emphasizes that that list must grow.
"To truly scale, we have to open back up to wholesale," she says. "You can only get to a certain point [without it]."
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