Nasty Gal Clothing makes vintage mainstream. Photo courtesy of Sophie Amorusa.Every generation has a designer/clothing company that dominates and creates the fashion scene starting with Coco Chanel in the 1920s.
Despite the provocative name and nature of Nasty Gal, it has seemed to win over and dominate ladies and fashionistas in their 20s. From 2008 (the year Nasty Gal was born) to 2011, the online clothing site saw a 10,000 percent growth curve in their sales. That's huge. But how did they do it?
Today's fashion has a "been there done that attitude," and every decade seems to repeat itself more and more rapidly as time goes on; hence why vintage has become so popular.
Nasty Gals founder, Sophia Amorusa, is an art school drop out and worked at over 10 retail stores by the time she was 22-years-old. No one saw success in her future, except for her. Her addiction was clothing, but not just your average clothing. She loved vintage clothing, and clothing that was out of the ordinary. She experimented with her appearance, and wasn’t afraid to be bold, edgy and as she describes “badass” in her style.
Amorusa's clothing company started on Ebay selling mostly vintage clothes she would find around Los Angeles and San Francisco. She really focused on the photography of her images she posted, and the online presence she was trying to create. She says “presentation is everything when you are trying to be successful in today's virtual world.”
Sophia Amorusa is the owner of Nasty Gal Clothing. Photo courtesy of Sophia Amorusa.Many people find the name “Nasty Gal” provocative. This is all right to Amorusa because she says “if you find the name provocative you probably won’t be wearing the clothing.” The name Nasty Gal comes from the singer Bettie Davis’s album “Nasty Gal.” Bettie Davis was married to Miles Davis, and is an ex runway model. Amorusa loved Davis's strong feminine ways, and I-don’t-care-what-you-think attitude.
But how do you compete with all of the vintage clothing online retailers?
Amorusa's goal was to make vintage and high fashion clothing wearable and sexy for women. Often times vintage doesn’t fit right, and high fashion off the runway isn’t practical for everyday life. These are the problems she wanted to solve.
She also add tips and tricks on how to wear each item of clothing on her website. She gives a description of how it fits and what the accessorize it with. This little detail is huge when shopping online. Many girls don’t like buying clothing because they can’t try it on. This helps solve that dilemma.
Along with vintage she buys new clothing from many designers including minkpink, Jefferey Campbell, UNIF and more. As much as she loves these designers she decided it was time for Nasty Gal to have its very own exclusive line. The Nasty Gal fall line just launched, and is cuter than ever.
Amorusa also just launched a magazine called “Super Nasty” representing the Nasty Gal lifestyle.
She has over 400,000 Instagram followers and 500,000 likes on Facebook. Amorusa is one to keep an eye on, and a great model for young fashionistas and entrepreneurs.
Visit nastygal.com to check it out!
If you have any ideas for stories contact me at gmnelson@asu.edu
