Knix founder Joanna Griffiths: 'The next legacy brands are being created in real time'

Womenswear brand Knix has already gone through the painful transition to DTC that other clothing companies are being forced into during the pandemic.

"I feel for those brands," Knix CEO Joanna Griffiths said on the Glossy Podcast. "But I also know that it's possible."

Griffiths founded the company in 2013 to make and market leakproof underwear. At the time, the business model was entirely about wholesale. "I did trunk shows at every Equinox location in the United States, I think," Griffiths said.

But in the 2016, she decided to pull out of more than 700 retail locations across North America and shift to direct-to-consumer, out of a concern for size inclusivity. "A lot of the traditional retailers wouldn’t carry our size assortment," Griffiths has previously told Glossy. On the podcast, she described it as a "really scary decision" to "basically cut our revenue in more than half and start over," she said.

That decision is panning out. This past May, sales were up 135% year-over-year, in part thanks to Knix's categories -- wireless bras and loungewear -- being in high demand in an age of social distancing.