There's no denying Dao-Yi Chow's influence in the fashion industry, especially menswear. Chow's worked with Sean John and Donna Karen, and he co-founded the CFDA award-winning brand Public School. Now, along with NFL quarterback Tom Brady and Jens Grede, founder of Frame and Skims, Chow is behind Brady's namesake apparel brand, which launched in January 2022. Shaped by Chow, the brand's creative director, Brady's key attributes include intentionality and functionality. "This is the first time [I've designed pure performance wear], and it's been a really enjoyable journey. The way we approach design at Brady is a lot more intentional than in my past work. It's thinking about the end user in intentional ways and approaching development -- whether that's [a product's] silhouette or fabric textile -- in a very clear way," Chow said on the latest episode of The Glossy Podcast. "I'm not saying I haven't designed in a clear way before, but it was a lot more subjective. The design process [at Brady] is less about trying to make something cool, [and more about] making something that's functional and does what we're saying it will do." As creative director, Chow has designed multiple collections that represent the brand's core goal of blending performance and lifestyle. That includes its swim collection, which launched over the summer. As the brand prepares to celebrate its first anniversary on January 12, building upon its popular core apparel items and expanding its distribution are top of mind. 

Prior to launching online marketplace Verishop in 2019, co-founders Imran and Cate Khan defined a white space with strong potential: an e-commerce site catering to influencers-turned-brand founders.  “If you were an independent brand creator, and you were building a brand with a point of view and a story to tell, there was no platform [for you],” Imran Khan said on the latest Glossy Podcast. “Brands in the ‘makers' economy’ don't want to be on every platform; they want to be on a platform where they can distinctively tell their stories. They were distributing through social media. Our thesis was that social media would become more crowded, making it difficult for these brands to acquire customers.” Of course, that’s proven true. In step, Verishop has evolved its business model to provide creator brands with marketing solutions, on top of serving as an aggregator. It’s been successful: Today, Verishop sells 5,000 brands from 3,000 merchants. Its monthly merchant retention rate is over 99%, and its merchant count grew 120% year-over-year in the third quarter. Its marketing solutions business grew 6X in the same period.  “We're seeing incredible product-market fit,” he said.