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A family business is a rare sight in today’s fashion landscape full of megaconglomerates, but clothing brand Faherty has made a point over the last 12 years to stay true to its roots. It has helped the company, led by Alex Faherty (CEO), his twin brother Mike Faherty (creative director), and Alex’s wife, Kerry Docherty (chief impact officer), maintain profitability since 2020.
After its first year in business, Faherty embarked on its first wholesale partnership in 2014 with Nordstrom to expand beyond swimwear and to deliver a full apparel collection of laid-back beach-inspired styles.
Not too shabby for the trio that started with a collection of bathing suits they sold out of a mobile store as they drove across the country.
“Selling out of our mobile store taught us the power of real one-on-one connection,” Alex Faherty said. “Sharing our story face-to-face sparked word of mouth that still fuels the brand today. We still hear from people we met on that first road trip—who 12 years later are still some of our most loyal customers.”
Faherty’s partnership with Nordstrom was the beginning of a fruitful wholesale portfolio that now includes Dillard’s, Bloomingdale’s, and other department stores in the US and globally.
“Having a wholesale business really helped us because we had a couple key stores that really wanted more products from us,” Alex Faherty said. “They were willing to buy enough for us to hit our minimum order quantities to get the pants business and the shorts business really off the ground.”
Without pressures from investors or a parent company, the Faherty family has taken a slow and measured approach to growth across channels. As its wholesale business was continuing to steadily grow, the founders expanded their horizons to retail, which they approached with a mom-and-pop strategy.
“Before Covid, we had a dozen stores,” Alex Faherty said. “They were good stores. They were small—it was a nice little business for us. When Covid hit, we really felt like this would be a great opportunity, as other people were really moving out of retail, focusing on e-commerce and not prioritizing physical, brick-and-mortar retail. We always loved the experience that customers had in person, and we felt like as a new brand, it was a great way for people to experience us and feel the product.”
In 2020, the Faherty family devised a three-year plan to scale its retail business, focused on resort towns, golf clubs, and busy shopping centers. Today, the brand has 79 physical locations in the US with 10 more on the way in the next year.
Alex Faherty has overseen the company’s revenue functions since its inception. The company brought on Taylor Lynn seven years ago as its senior vice president of retail and wholesale to spearhead both channels.
Lynn said the brand’s wholesale and retail channels have always had a “symbiotic relationship.”
“Being able to have wholesale and at the same time figuring out how to start opening stores just based on size of the collection, cash flow, all of the things, it’s been an amazing evolution where we didn’t have to see a dip in wholesale as our retail footprint was growing,” she said. “We’re seeing a ton of success in our wholesale space, even as we’re opening these stores. It’s just really heightening the awareness of the brand, and it’s been beneficial for both relationships. As our retail footprint has grown, we’ve been able to offer some exclusives and styles that the specialty stores or department stores really need to drive their business that don’t necessarily need to always show up in our retail footprint.”
She explained both retail and wholesale have grown year-over-year without one impacting the other negatively. According to Alex Faherty, the brand’s combined wholesale and retail pillars make up its largest revenue channel, with wholesale comprising 25% and retail 45%; e-commerce makes up 30%.
“We obviously had a big e-commerce boom that happened in 2020 and 2021 that a lot of brands experienced,” he said. “What building out the retail fleet really helped was, as the e-commerce boom slowed down, we had this pipeline of new stores in 2022 and 2023 that really helped keep some great momentum behind the brand and really help build our revenue base.”
Lynn credits Faherty’s retail success to the inviting nature of its stores. As many of its locations are in smaller towns, she said some retail associates get to know customers on a personal level and that many customers use stores as a community hub, similar to the way a mom-and-pop business would be run.
This in-store experience ties in Faherty’s family roots, which are at the core of the business. The Faherty brothers are just 42, and Alex Faherty believes the benefit of a family-owned business is that they can think—and make decisions—for the long term.
“We see a long runway of continuing to do this, so that’s important,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere. We want the brand to continue to stay true to our initial vision and what we love and what we like. We want to keep doing this. We don’t want to sell it anytime soon to someone else and that’s really important. We want to grow it at a very reasonable, sustainable rate that we feel really comfortable with, with a team of people that are amazing.”
Correction 06/17/2025: This story has been updated to reflect Mike Faherty’s title as creative director.