How apparel brands like Madewell, American Eagle and M.M.LaFleur are building ‘a different brand personality’ through Substack

Substack is inherently a good fit for fashion content, brand executives told Modern Retail, because the industry is rooted in self-expression. Readers flock to fashion Substacks to see how people are styling the latest products — but they also want to learn about assembling a capsule wardrobe, dressing for a new job or getting a leg up in the design industry. Apparel brands, for their part, benefit from posting on Substack because they can access new audiences and show off a different, more interactive side of their company.

As Craig Brommers, the CMO of American Eagle, told Modern Retail, “TikTok is a certain version of us, Instagram is a certain version of us, and Snap expresses a different part of our brand personality. Now, Substack is another opportunity for us to express ourselves and how we fit into the culture.”

Brands have experimented with Substack before, largely through sponsored posts on other writers’ Substacks. But in the past few months, a shift has been underway. As Modern Retail has reported, more companies, fashion and otherwise, are publishing newsletters under their own brand name. In this way, they’re using Substack as a direct-to-consumer marketing channel — and they’re finding that the pivot is paying off. M.M.LaFleur, for instance, told Modern Retail that sales from Substack-linked products are up some 280% in the last few months.

Here’s how three apparel brands — Madewell, American Eagle and M.M.LaFleur — are structuring their Substacks and experimenting with the channel.

Madewell

• Name of Substack: “Well Said”
• First publication date: April 30, 2025
• Written by: Madewell’s editorial director, guest stylists, brand fans and major voices on Substack
• Publishing cadence: Every other week
• Type of content: Long-form personal essays and style inspiration

Millennial favorite Madewell joined Substack last month to publish more “personal storytelling,” Laura Michael, Madewell’s head of brand creative and marketing, told Modern Retail. “We’re speaking to someone who wants to connect with our brand in a more meaningful way,” she explained. “It’s not about selling clothes — it’s about … what we wear and why we wear it.”

Madewell’s Substack posts do highlight and link out to Madewell products like sunglasses, shorts and shirts. But Madewell doesn’t want its Substack “to feel like branded content,” Michael said. Rather, it treats its posts as personal essays and musings on fashion and culture — with some imagery sprinkled in. “Come for the style, stay for the story,” Madewell proclaimed in its inaugural post.

In the first issue of “Well Said,” stylist Clare Richardson wrote about narrowing down her closet and wearing “pieces that feel like me.” In another issue timed to Mother’s Day, retail consultant Julian Paik talked about denim and how “’mom jeans’ has been used as a punchline for far too long.” In June, menswear designer Aaron Levine will author a post about men’s style and Father’s Day.

Madewell worked closely with Substack to develop its newsletter, which now has some 400 subscribers. The brand continues to consult Substack’s team about best practices and new features. In March, ahead of the launch of “Well Said,” Madewell threw a dinner with the Substack writer Laura Reilly.

Madewell encourages its readers to post comments, and it’s eager to experiment with different types of formats, including video. When it comes to content, “we’re staying flexible,” Michael explained. But one thing is clear, she said: “The writing leads.”

American Eagle

• Name of Substack: “Off The Cuff”
• First publication date: May 7, 2025
• Written by: Guest editors and AE’s content team
• Publishing cadence: Every other week
• Type of content: Trend round-ups, internal brand data and customer insights

American Eagle is popular with young shoppers and therefore found it a “no brainer” to launch on an emerging platform like Substack, its CMO Brommers told Modern Retail. “There’s a portion of Gen Z that wants more lean-in content than just that endless social scroll,” he explained. “You have to innovate, and you have to do it constantly. This was a platform we felt would bring a fresh voice to our overall marketing mix.”

To help get its Substack off the ground, American Eagle tapped Casey Lewis, author of the popular Gen Z-focused Substack “After School,” as its guest editor for its first couple of issues. Lewis was already a fan of American Eagle, and her following has helped propel “Off The Cuff” to more than 2,000 subscribers. The Substack is also overseen by a small team of American Eagle staffers.

American Eagle isn’t looking to copy and paste from Lewis’s own Substack — or from its other channels. It wants “Off The Cuff” to have its own style of content, a voice that’s different from how it shows up on TikTok or Instagram. As such, it’s taking a more behind-the-scenes approach with its Substack, looking at purchase trends and asking readers questions. “For the first time, we’re going to be sharing some of the data that we look at as a brand, as marketers, with this audience,” Brommers said.

For the first issue, that meant a look at “jorts by the numbers.” (As Lewis wrote, “AE.com searches containing ‘jort’ jumped 361% year-to-date.”) Lewis also asked American Eagle fans what type of jean shorts they’d prefer to wear, and nearly 40% said baggy. Other aspects of the newsletter focused on blue eyeshadow and the rise of the “dilly-dally spring” aesthetic.

Like its peers, American Eagle’s “Off The Cuff” links out to product pages so readers can buy the latest merchandise. Still, American Eagle wants its Substack to feel more “like a group chat” than a catalog, Brommers said. “We’ll share this, and maybe other people will share that.” He added that Substack is another opportunity to help people get to know the brand. “We’re not going to be promotional,” he said. “It’s more around culture, more around insights.”

M.M.LaFleur

• Name of Substack: “The M Dash”
• First publication date: February 5, 2025 (though M.M.LaFleur has been publishing content on WordPress for years)
• Written by: M.M.LaFleur’s content team
• Publishing cadence: Once a week
• Type of content: Styling tips, career advice, profiles of public figures and video interviews

M.M.LaFleur, a women’s workwear brand, published content for a decade on its WordPress blog before migrating all of its content to Substack in February. Already, its newsletter “The M Dash” has racked up some 90,000 subscribers eager for tips on everything from styling a blazer to packing for a work trip.

A few months in, traffic is up, and engagement is steady, Maddie Kim, M.M.LaFleur’s head of editorial, told Modern Retail. “We were able to take what people loved about ‘The M Dash’ and bring it to a new platform where we’re able to reach new people,” she explained.

As part of moving over to Substack, M.M.LaFleur has been able to experiment more with content, form and posting cadence. First of all, it adjusted its publishing schedule from three times a week to once a week after finding that most people only tuned into one story. Paring down posts allows the brand “to focus on creating higher-quality content,” Kim said. As an example, she said, “We’re taking the time to order pieces and photograph ourselves wearing them, which is a lot more work than pulling a product image from the website and writing a blurb about it.”

M.M.LaFleur has also started posting live styling videos and person-on-the-street interviews on Substack. It’s been able to repost this content on other platforms, like TikTok and Instagram. One video, called “Let’s Get Dressed for the Office,” lasted 15 minutes and put together sample outfits for viewers who wrote in the comments.

M.M.LaFleur’s primary goal for its Substack is discovery, its team says. Half of the brand’s customers find out about M.M.LaFleur from existing customers, and Substack’s recommendation tools fit that mold, said Maria Costa, M.M.LaFleur’s director of brand and integrated marketing. “Substack is almost like a word-of-mouth referral in a way that feels really organic and authentic,” Costa noted. She also pointed out that M.M.LaFleur is seeing more customers post comments on Substack, in a way they didn’t on WordPress.

Like the other Substacks mentioned in this article, “The M Dash” links outward to product pages. Over the past few months, sales from such products have grown. M.M.LaFleur’s sales from Substack went up 54% from March to April, and revenue per story “goes up month over month,” Kim explained. But content, not sales, is still the main goal, she stressed, saying that the nature of Substack lends itself well to the brand’s mission.

“We make clothes that are meant to last,” she said. “They’re not micro trends. We want people to be intentional about building a wardrobe, and I think that lends itself to this longer-form platform where we can give a little more explanation and be a little more thoughtful.”