Sara and Erin Foster are quick with a joke, whether they’re skewering each other on their podcast or on Instagram sharing photos of adventures with home birth or planking with their younger stepmom, Katherine McPhee.
But no one should be laughing at the Hollywood sister act’s growing L.A. contemporary fashion brand. After launching four years ago with a COVID-friendly mask hoodie, Centric Brands’ Favorite Daughter is on track to do $50 million in sales in 2024 on its quest to be the next billion-dollar fashion brand.
At a time when the fashion and entertainment industries are converging more than ever, the Fosters sit at the nexus of both, with multiple content channels to promote their relatable clothes, including an upcoming Netflix comedy which they coproduced, “Nobody Wants This,” premiering Sept. 26.
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Erin Foster wrote the series based on her love life; it stars Kristen Bell and Adam Brody. In a stroke of synergy, the series will feature some of Favorite Daughter’s most popular pieces throughout the season, which were purchased (alongside other brands) by the costume designer Negar Ali-Kline.
Daughters of music mega producer David Foster and his second wife Rebecca Foster, the sisters were born into Hollywood and have a friend circle of A-listers even if they haven’t always felt like A-listers themselves. Their first TV series, which ran from 2015 to 2016, a hilarious send-up of the reality genre, was called “Barely Famous.”
Their expanding range of apparel, denim, suiting, accessories and logo wear with cheeky slogans like “Favorite Daughter” and “Sports Mom” — all at prices from $40 to $698, outside of a few leather pieces that go up to $1,500 — has garnered support from celebrity friends who can afford everything. Jennifer Aniston wore the leggy Valentina boot-cut jeans on the last season of “The Morning Show”; Gigi Hadid, Katy Perry and Kris Jenner are fans of the houndstooth suiting, and Shawn Mendes wears the sweaters.
The brand has also been boosted by the fashion crowd, with Moda Operandi’s Lauren Santo Domingo comparing the Favorite pants to Celine’s, and Jamie Mizrahi “grabbing the jeans most mornings” as part of her daily uniform. “I love the constant newness and how everything is so wearable and digestible,” said the stylist, who is Erin’s best friend.
Favorite Daughter is also resonating with real world customers. In February, more than 1,100 waited in line outside the Nordstrom 57th Street flagship in New York City, some driving in from as far away as Boston and Philadelphia, to get inside to shop and see a live taping of the Fosters’ “The World’s First Podcast” with Tinx.
“The collections feel personal and relatable. The lineup of great denim, slinky slips, and knits is super wearable,” said Rickie De Sole, fashion director at Nordstrom, which was Favorite Daughter’s first retail partner and now stocks the brand in 40 locations.
Favorite Daughter is carried in 210 stores in the U.S. and 30 internationally plus Moda Operandi, Revolve and Shopbop online. The business is split 40 percent wholesale and 60 percent direct to consumer, and expects to see a 50 percent increase in year-over-year sales in 2024.
Barely Fashionistas
The Fosters pride themselves on coming at fashion from a pragmatic place.
“Not that we’ve ever been invited, but we’re not the girls who get excited to sit at a Dior show,” Sara Foster, 43, said during a joint interview with her sister at their downtown L.A. offices. “The thing that motivates us in fashion is..
“Accessibility,” said Erin Foster, 41, finishing her sentence. “Feeling good makes us excited.”
“We run in real fashion circles,” said Sara, who modeled for a handful of years and grew up trying to make her Crossroads school uniform cooler by rolling up her skirt and wearing boxer shorts peeking out. “So we get this view of beautiful clothes and incredible designers even though we’re not those girls. But we want to be able to sit at the table with those people and feel great.”
“And it turns out there’s a lot more girls like us than there are girls who are willing to spend $1,200 on a pair of pants. So we really are speaking to her,” said Erin, whose personal style is clean, simple and elevated compared to her sister’s, which is more adventurous.
The Fosters are hilariously quippy and have cultivated appeal on social media by not taking themselves too seriously. Their Instagram accounts have a combined 1.6 million followers, including third sister Jordan Foster, who is the Favorite Daughter style director based in New York, and the brand’s account.
At the same time, they are big sister types willing to share and talk about their most vulnerable moments. On their podcast they have gotten candid about their battles with dating, anxiety and infertility, welcoming guests such as Kate Hudson, Molly Shannon, Jen Meyer and a bevy of health and wellness experts.
They are also plugged into the start-up world. They parlayed creative roles at the dating app Bumble into an investment in home fitness app Mirror and then launched their own Oversubscribed venture capital fund to invest in female-founded brands such as Juliet boxed wine.
All of which made them attractive partners for Centric, producer and licensee of more than 100 brands including Joe’s Jeans, Hervé Léger, Zac Posen and Robert Graham.
“We understood that Sara and Erin were influencers but as we got to know them, we saw they’re also entrepreneurs. They had their own VC fund, they had invested successfully in other businesses, they really understood how to drive commerce with great content. And that’s a very specialized skill,” said Suzy Biszantz, group president at Centric Brands. “Plus, they have a wonderful network of female entrepreneurs and founders who really support each other in business.”
Even in this challenging retail environment, she’s bullish on Favorite Daughter’s future.
“We don’t think there’s any limit to how big this can be because some of the categories we’re thinking about, whether it’s kids or beauty, if it ends up being skin care, those categories could be north of $100 million themselves if done correctly,” said Biszantz. “We’ve talked about this being a billion-dollar brand concept.”
From Direct Message to Brand
Appropriately enough, the concept was born out of a DM.
In 2019, Centric Brands division head Jennifer Hawkins had been watching the Fosters’ banter on social media, and their sales of “Favorite Daughter” hoodies in collaboration with Suburban Riot, and reached out to them via Instagram about doing an influencer campaign and capsule for Joe’s Jeans.
That first meeting turned into much more when the idea for a Favorite Daughter brand was hatched over lunch at San Vicente Bungalows.
The Fosters were wary at first.
“After our first lunch, I was like, I don’t want to do a brand. I want to figure out what our next show is, I want to bring back ‘Barely Famous,’ this feels like a derailment,” said Sara Foster. “It just didn’t feel authentic at the time. We live in a time now where everyone’s throwing spaghetti at the wall, which in some ways is good. But then in other ways, if you’re giving 30 percent to all these things, then you’re not going to have any winners.”
“Lots of people told us don’t give away 50 percent of your company, go do it on your own,” said Erin Foster. “But we knew a) we weren’t going to do it on our own, and b) we couldn’t do it on our own. We have zero experience, why would we ever do that? Day One, we go 50/50 joint venture with Centric and it becomes the business as it is today.”
“It’s always important to know what you don’t know,” said Sara.
During 2020, when COVID-19 shut down the entertainment business, the sisters were able to turn their full attention to the brand, working with design director Carla Cavelo, who arrived with experience from L’Agence. They developed styles in their backyards, and launched their website and first product using Centric’s infrastructure.
The first full collection launched in January 2021 with suiting, but no one was going back to the office yet. “We did $100,000 in hoodies, then had a cold shower, and had to build back up with more intention,” Sara said.
Erin also learned a lesson; she’d had a relationship with Shopbop as an influencer and reached out in the early days of the brand, sure that it would want to pick up Favorite Daughter. “They said thank you very much but we’re really not looking for new brands at this moment,” she recalled. “And you know what, one part of me was like, that kind of stinks. But then the other part of me was like, OK, here we go. It’s gasoline. And we weren’t ready and we didn’t deserve it at the time but being underestimated is a superpower. So then we went and created a big business with Nordstrom and Revolve and Moda and Shopbop called and said, ‘Favorite Daughter is the number-one searched brand that we don’t have. We need Favorite Daughter.'”
Sales increased in three years from $4.5 million to $25 million to closing in on $50 million when suiting took off at retail. “There’s something about wearing work clothes without feeling stuffy and feeling cool enough going to get a drink after work and still wanting to wear the same outfit,” said Erin, who said they contribute bits of inspiration they find anywhere, from a 1990s Katyone Adeli pant to a paparazzi photo.
The brand’s bestselling style is the $248 pleated Favorite pant, which comes in an array of colors and has morphed into the Favorite skirt as well; the City blazer and to-the-floor tailored Simon coat also do well and get reinvented season after season. The $208 Door’s Always Open boyfriend shirt is another perennial hit, alongside sexy ruched jersey tops, henleys and tanks.
“We feel like she’s buying her first work clothes from us, or maybe renting them from Nuuly,” Hawkins said of the rental site Favorite Daughter has as a partner. “And then there are women in their 40s and 50s, too, because the price value is so strong and the distribution so good at Nordstrom and Saks.”
Designing for Themselves
Throughout, the Fosters have been involved at a deeper level than one might expect.
“There are definitely other talent front-facing businesses, not all of them work, and most of them don’t. We think the reason why this one does work and is working is because these really are the clothes that we wear out in the world,” said Erin. “If you are someone who is in business that is lower-end price points, but all you are seen wearing on your social media is the highest end, there’s a huge gap in the authenticity and I think people feel that… It really makes a difference when we feel connected to the pieces in the line and when we’re out in the world you’re gonna see us in Favorite Daughter not because we’re pitching it but because we’re creating the pieces that we want to wear.”
“In the beginning, we were going to lean into our personal styles much harder, it was going to literally be the Sara closet and the Erin closet, and I wanted everything high-waisted and long…” Sara explained.
“Things Sara and Kendall Jenner can wear,” Erin deadpanned.
“That’s a huge compliment. But I do think we cater now to a lot of body types and sizes and heights. And I do feel like the tall girls are a little bit left behind,” her sister hit back.
“Sara wants justice for tall skinny girls,” Erin laughed.
Welcome to the (barely) famous banter.
“The Door’s Always Open Boyfriend was really born out of me having a shorter torso, and always trying to wear a button-down men’s shirt and have a half tuck,” said Erin. “It always looked silly on me pooling out, and I could never figure out the fix. So I said can we make a shirt where it just breaks open so it’s always kind of a little bit open to the front. And what’s so cool about this opportunity that we have is we come in and have an idea of a fix or something that would be helpful, and then we have these amazing partners who then go and make it happen.”
Getting to Know the Customer
They’re hands on with the business side, too.
“I’m in the weeds of everything,” said Sara, who follows sales on Shopify, to the level where she’s sent friends different sizes than what they’ve ordered if she thinks they’ve misjudged.
“She’s the person who’s like ‘this thing just launched and it’s not selling, I need everybody to post about it,'” said Erin.
And they do. “When we have a slow morning and by slow I mean we’re not hitting our 200 percent growth rate, Sara is in her closet by 1 p.m. or if she’s in the offices, she’s creating content right there,” said Biszantz.
“She’s a merchant without looking at spreadsheets,” said Hawkins, who said that Sara’s insight has guided the team to make more sets. “Also, candidly, she’s tracking returns, too. That’s the hard part of this business.”
The Fosters are in every fitting, even if the fitting has to come to them, as it did when Erin was in the writing room at Netflix last year, and now that she’s taking a bit of time off following the birth of her first child, Noa. “We don’t take for granted for one second that we will never get this opportunity again. If we fail, we won’t. We’re not going to get another clothing line. And frankly, the imposter me is like we didn’t deserve this,” Erin said.
“Once you have the opportunity you earn your place to be there,” said Sara. “But we’re always proving ourselves and reminding everyone around us that we’re part of a team. We don’t want yes people around us.”
“That’s a great way to kill a business,” said Erin.
Expanding the Ecosystem
They are counting on the Centric leadership to plot their expansion.
Favorite Daughter has already outgrown its first Beverly Hills store, which opened last year. In September, it will open a 4,500-square-foot “store of the future” on Beverly Drive, with 2,500 square feet for retail, and a 1,000-square-foot content creation studio and VIP area for podcast recording and livestream shopping.
Hawkins is also looking at locations on Madison Avenue in New York, in Greenwich, Chicago and Dallas, and has hired sales reps to expand international wholesale doors.
The brand is pushing into new categories as well. Earlier this year Favorite Daughter launched two clean fragrances with Saint Jane, and their first accessories — belts.
“We see the company being our favorites — our favorite beauty, our favorite undergarments, our favorite accessories, our favorite…” said Sara.
“Jewelry,” Erin continued. “We did a really great collab with Jenny Bird on the Favorite ear stack and it did really well. Our girl wants us to to tell her how to live.”
It’s been a long time coming.
“We were hustling so hard in our 20s but nothing was working. A lot of dead ends that were supposed to be really big with a lot of hype…. Jobs you thought you were gonna get you didn’t,” said Sara. “I thought I was going to be Cameron Diaz because when you are young and you’re acting and you’re getting big roles you believe what people tell you.”
“And you weren’t even thinking big enough, you said I’m gonna be a big movie star one day, but the truth is you have such a brain for business. And you didn’t even know to think or to dream of those things. And now you’re living it and it’s actually so much more fulfilling” said Erin, speaking in the way they do to each other and guests on their podcast.
The sisters are tending to other ventures, too. After closing their first $20 million Oversubscribed Ventures fund, they’re thinking about raising a second one.
“The truth is, is that [former CEO of Bumble] Whitney Wolfe giving us the opportunity to be creative directors starting in 2017, and then having equity in that company, and having the exit that they did, it really woke us up to tech and consumer businesses. And again, the same connection we have with women for Favorite Daughter or on a podcast is the same thing that helps us invest in companies,” said Erin. “We started getting a lot of companies coming to us wanting us to invest in their brands, but we’re still building our own and we can’t make $500,000 checks out, so we started our fund so we can invest other people’s money instead of our money. And it’s been really cool.”
It’s all part of the ecosystem, as they call it.
“Everything we do, the podcast, the consumer businesses we invest in, it’s all the same girl, and she’s going to watch the Netflix show,” said Sara.
“It’s all versions of what’s relevant today, right? What women want, what are people talking about, what’s in the ether, and it absolutely informs each part of the business,” said Erin, adding of Favorite Daughter, “We’ve continued to exceed our own expectations for where it can be year over year. The future is about continuing to prove ourselves and grow in different categories, in different stores, and making sure that whoever this girl is, this customer of ours, she has a really great rom-com to watch on TV, she has a really great blazer to wear to work, she has something cute to wear on a date…”
“And a podcast to listen to on the way,” said Sara.