Anine Bing

ANINE BING is a women's fashion brand headquartered in Los Angeles, California, founded by Anine Bing (Founder and Chief Creative Officer) and her husband, known as Nicolai Nielsen and later Nico Bing (Founder and Chief Executive Officer/President). The company designs and sells modern wardrobe essentials and statement pieces for women, combining Scandinavian simplicity with American influences. Its product range spans clothing, denim, shoes, accessories, footwear and fragrance, and has expanded over time into a children's line (BING KIDS), an athleisure line (ANINE BING SPORT, launched 2021) and cosmetics, including the brand's first fragrance, Savage Rose.

The brand operates a direct-to-consumer model combining its own online store with brick-and-mortar retail. Its website ships worldwide and directs customers to retail locations internationally. Wikipedia lists the company as private, in the wholesale trade of clothing and footwear, with 251 employees and 21 stores worldwide. Marketing has included celebrity campaigns (Kate Moss fronted the Fall 2024 campaign, shot by Chris Colls) and collaborations with Helena Christensen (2020), Reebok (2024) and Ole Henriksen. The company has also run philanthropic initiatives with Every Mother Counts, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and Dress for Success.

Founding story

Anine Bing, a former model, singer and fashion blogger, began by selling some of her own used clothes online in 2012; the items sold out within an hour, which prompted her to start a fashion line. Together with her husband Nicolai Nielsen, who had roughly 20 years of experience in fashion production, she travelled to Turkey with 20 pairs of jeans and several vintage pieces as production references, since she had no formal design training. The first collection was posted on Shopify and sold quickly to her blog and Instagram audience, generating about $50,000 of sales in the first month and exceeding $100,000 in the second. The business was started out of the couple's garage in the Silver Lake neighbourhood of Southern California after they relocated from Denmark in 2012.

Business model

Vertically oriented fashion house that designs and sells its own branded apparel, footwear, accessories and fragrance directly to consumers through its own e-commerce site and company-operated retail stores worldwide, supplemented by wholesale distribution of clothing and footwear.

Revenue comes from product sales of women's apparel, denim, shoes, accessories and fragrance through the brand's own online store and physical retail locations, plus business-to-business wholesale of clothing and footwear.

Traction

According to its Series A announcement, the company doubled revenue year over year from the 2016 initial investment, saw web traffic grow in line, recorded 50% new-customer growth in June 2018, tripled its employee base and operated eight retail stores at that point, with plans to double the business again through 2019-2020. Wikipedia reports 251 employees and 21 stores worldwide.

Latest developments

In 2024 the company opened Paris offices and named Julie Bourgeois as its first global president, launched an Anine Bing x Reebok athleisure capsule and a collaboration with Ole Henriksen, and used Kate Moss as the face of its Fall 2024 campaign. Current site merchandising centres on weekly drops of tees, denim and jackets across clothing, shoes and accessories.