Luxury sleepwear brand Petite Plume is increasing product partnerships outside of fashion with the aim of becoming a lifestyle brand. Now in its ninth year, Petite Plume is an eight-figure profitable business – and the company is banking on collaborations for incremental growth.
The idea is to create a “Petite Plume World” by designing products across a wide range of lifestyle categories to reach new audiences. Over the past few months, Petite Plume has teamed up with bedding brand Parachute on a line of pajamas inspired by Parachute’s prints, as well as greeting cards and stationery sets in partnership with Minted. She also teamed up with French bakery and café Maman on a line including mommy and me placemats, napkins, table runners and aprons,
For Petite Plume, collaborations have been a way to help the brand expand into new areas like home and hospitality. These partnerships began in January 2023, starting with an exclusive collection at the Colony Hotel. This was Petite Plume’s first foray into the hotel industry. Its latest foray into the hospitality sector includes a capsule collection with luxury hotel Eden Rock St. Barths, released this week.
Since launching as a children’s pajamas brand in 2015, Petite Plume has expanded into sleepwear for the whole family. It is currently sold in more than 500 stores, including Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom. The majority of the brand’s revenue still comes from its direct-to-consumer channel, which the company wants to expand further.
Fanny Quehe, marketing director at Petite Plume, told Modern Retail that the main driver behind many of these collaborations is the desire to evolve into a lifestyle brand infused with European-inspired nostalgia. “It’s also about building credibility in all the categories we’re looking to grow, and home is a big one,” Quehe said.
So far, collections are contributing to DTC’s growth. “We will probably close the year with an 80 percent increase (in revenue) compared to last year,” Quehe said.
The company’s marketing playbook now consists of a combination of social ads, affiliate marketing, email and SMS. “We have also diversified our spending and doubled down on what we think works for us,” Quehe said. The fourth quarter has historically been Petite Plume’s most profitable quarter of the year, and the addition of brand collaborations helped drive more visitors to the Petite Plume website during a busy period.
The strategy started organically, but Quehe said the success of early partnerships led the brand to pursue more. The company is now looking for specific businesses that reflect Petite Plume’s aesthetic.
“They need to be an opportunity to build the narrative of Petite Plume, whether it’s through the heritage journey or this idea of heritage or home,” Quehe said. She added that the goal is first and foremost to create a brand building initiative that will also help reach new audiences.
For example, partnering with hotel brands seemed like a good solution since Petite Plume started as a luxury sleep brand.
The sleepwear style launched at the Colony Hotel in 2023 still works well today. Other hotel collaborations include one with Hotel Del Coronado, which sold out in its first month. There, Quehe said: “We created 100% mulberry silk in a beautiful watercolor print, representative of the property. »
“These are all historic hotels with a very rich history,” Quehe said. “What we learned is that a truly compelling product pays homage to the properties.” These collections are typically sold on both companies’ websites as well as in hotels and their respective websites if the hotels have them.
With Maman, the idea was to develop in the home department through new types of products. Petite Plume entered the home and pet categories in 2023. It added products like flannel bedding, table linens and pet accessories made from the brand’s popular fabric prints. “It’s slowly becoming an important part of our portfolio,” Quehe said.
These types of multi-brand partnerships to have becoming a go-to strategy among startup brands trying to expand their reach. Hotel and health clubs, in particular, work with emerging brands to carry their products.
Philip Atkins, founder of marketing agency Phidel Digital, said one of the reasons these lifestyle partnerships between brands have taken off is because they are a means of acquiring relatively inexpensive customers. This is particularly interesting at a time when digital advertising costs are increasing.
“There is also so much content pollution; “Brands can leverage these partnerships to both enrich social media and drive commerce,” said Atkins, whose agency helped create collaborations like Magnolia Bakery’s Magnolia Bakery-inspired banana pudding candle. Boy Smells.
For Petite Plume, other lifestyle collaborations with other brands should be rolled out next year. “Collaborations are a very powerful tool when it comes to expanding a brand’s reach, growing its perception and creating unique experiences,” said Quehe. “But in today’s ecosystem of DTC brands, many of them can very quickly start to feel gimmicky or forced.”