How Petite Plume’s hero product strategy is driving growth

In an era of fast fashion and microtrends, sticking to what you know can be a risky strategy for some fashion brands. For luxury sleepwear label Petite Plume, focusing on a hero product has proven successful.

Launched in 2015 by founder and CEO Emily Hikade, a former CIA counterterrorism agent of 15 years, Petite Plume has been profitable since the start and hasn’t taken on any outside investment.

Hikade said the rise of athleisure and loungewear—bolstered by the Covid pandemic—has helped create steady growth for the brand, as has Petite Plume’s bridal collections and hospitality partnerships. It’s on track to hit $100 million in revenue this year, according to Hikade.

Hero strategy

Hikade credits the brand’s growth to its hero product strategy, an approach where a company focuses its marketing and design efforts on a best-selling item. The founder recognized the value of the strategy after the success of the brand’s Olivia pajamas style. This was reinforced by her conversations with other founders, some who said their hero products made up 30% of sales.

To promote customer retention through the hero product strategy, Petite Plume regularly releases Olivia pajamas in different fabrics and prints—especially ones anchored to various holidays or seasons.

“We’ve been really driving into customer acquisition and performance marketing,” Hikade said. “I always tell my team we need to make sure our stallions are able to run at full speed, so we tried to edit our SKU count and amplify our depth.”

Petite Plume also leveraged the success of its Olivia pajamas to debut a shorts version of the style, which Hikade said has been performing well.

“In the last couple years, we really reoriented our entire company toward focusing on the hero strategy and really letting those hero products drive our sales and profitability,” she said. “The reality is that we can drive so much revenue with those heroes.”

Slow and steady

For many emerging brands, the hero product strategy can prove to be effective in establishing a loyal customer base and planting the seeds for growth. Instead of releasing a slew of items at once, the hero product strategy allows brands to see what resonates and invest resources accordingly.

“Early on, a hero product is not a marketing decision. It is a survival decision,” said Mark Zides, fractional CRO and strategic advisor. “Most young brands do not fail because they lack effort. They fail because they spread themselves too thin, too fast. When you put everything behind one product, every dollar and every conversation compounds toward the same story, and the market learns exactly what you stand for. Your hero product is your wedge. It earns trust, drives repeat customers, and buys you the right to expand later.”

Hikade said Petite Plume’s next step is category expansion, which she will navigate by leveraging the learnings from the Olivia style. She said the brand will pivot its focus from delivering new seasonal prints to focusing on fabrics and details. Petite Plume already delivered the first step of this strategy with recent product releases, including pajama styles in voile and pointelle fabrics. Beyond apparel, Petite Plume has its sights on a home collection, which it plans to release next year.