Happy Sunday,
The apparel business is hard. Thats the context for this week. Seems like every day we’re navigating manufacturing costs, freight, tariffs, retail relationships, DTC economics, and a consumer who has more choices than ever and less patience for anything that feels inauthentic. We fight that fight every day, and most days we’re happy to do it.
So there’s something genuinely strange about sitting down to write an obituary for a brand we looked up to. A brand that, honestly, is part of the reason we exist. But here we are.
In November 2025, Stance Socks was sold off to Marquee Brands. If you follow the sock or broader apparel world, you saw the press release. If you don’t, you probably missed it. Either way, we’ve been digging in to this to try and understand how this came to be.
We liked Stance.
More than liked them, actually. In the mid-2010s, what Stance was doing is a big part of what led to us building Arvin Goods. They proved something we didn’t know was possible, that socks could be a real category, not an afterthought. That people would pay more for something better, something with a point of view. That a sock company could be a stand alone brand.
They were the proof of concept in the market.
Stance was co-founded in 2009 by a group of friends and colleagues in San Clemente, California, surf town energy, creative DNA, and a genuine belief that the sock drawer deserved better. They built something real. By 2015 they were the official sock of the NBA. By 2016 they had Dwyane Wade, Will Smith, Nas, Roc Nation, and Kleiner Perkins all on the cap table. At their peak, Stance was (reportedly) hitting well over $100 million in annual sales. That’s a real business.
So what happened?
Too much money, too many bets
The short answer, venture capital: raise a lot of money, spend a lot of money, miss your targets, raise more money, repeat until you can’t.
From what we can see it looks like Stance’s last private fundraise was a $30 million Series D in 2016, which valued the company at $400+ million. In total they raised more than $116 million from firms including Kleiner Perkins, August Capital, and Shasta Ventures. At a $400 million valuation, you aren’t just a sock brand anymore you’re a platform, a market maker, whatever story keeps the next round alive.
When you hit this level the bets get bigger. Underwear at $30 a pair. T-shirts. Fifteen retail stores across the US and eventually one in London. Licensing deals with the NBA, MLB, Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Warner Bros. Each one a headline, each one another layer of complexity to manage and another mouth to feed.
The underwear initiative looks like one of the biggest swings. If you miss targets, then the resources become tighter. The company shifted focus toward DTC to bolster margins while tightening wholesale distribution. Then came T-shirts. After a few misses like this you start to see restructuring.
The licensing world is seductive because it looks like brand equity. The NBA patch on your sock, the Disney collab, the Basquiat art, it presents as credibility. But once you’re deep in licensing, you’re no longer building a brand around what you make. You’re building a brand around what you borrow.
The sale, and what it means
In November 2025, Marquee Brands, a global brand management firm backed by Neuberger Berman acquired Stance and simultaneously announced a licensing partnership with United Legwear and Apparel Co. (ULAC), which becomes the core global operator for the brand across all markets except China.
Marquee’s model is built around royalty payments from third-party licensee partners who manufacture and distribute products under owned intellectual property an asset-light model they’ve refined across a portfolio that includes BCBG, Dakine, Body Glove, Ben Sherman, Martha Stewart, and Laura Ashley. Several of those were acquired out of bankruptcy or distress.
Marquee moved quickly to close Stance’s retail stores, including California locations that you would think had some brand value. The only remaining brick-and-mortar Stance location (we could find) was a store at Disney Springs in Florida. For a brand that started as a creative rebellion against the boring sock drawer, it’s a strange final address.
The structure of the deal tells you something too. From the information we could find this is presented as a sale of all of its assets. Not a merger, not a strategic partnership. An asset sale. That’s the language of a company that had no options left, and needed an exit.
What we take from it
We want to be clear: we’re a tiny brand writing about a company that built something we never have. We don’t generate anything near $100 million in sales. We haven’t signed the NBA or put Basquiat on a sock. We are not in a position to second-guess the decisions that got Stance there, or the ones that came after.
What we can do is carry the respect forward. Stance opened a door for this whole category, and we walked through it. We plan to keep building on this, stay close to the product, and the customer, and try not to get caught in the loop that eventually swallowed them.
The apparel business is hard! RIP Stance🧦
A note: Everything above is drawn from us following Stance for 15+ years, public reporting, funding records, and a fair amount of internet digging. We have no first hand knowledge of the situation.
Hope you enjoy today’s Clean Up. We would love to hear from you. Comment here on Substack, hit us on social, or email us at info@arvingoods.com. Have a great week. Cheers,
Stories Of The Week…
Design
Charli XCX buries BRAT with minimalist new single cover - Creative Bloq
If you weren’t having a BRAT summer back in 2024, were you even there? British singer Charli XCX’s album took the world by storm thanks to its earworm songs and undone aesthetic, which smashed through the stuffiness of the music industry at the time.
A bastion of anti-design, BRAT marketing took over the internet, redefining design in the music world, so naturally, when the singer announced her new single Rock Music, ears were pricked, and eyes were peeled. If the name alone wasn’t enough of a giveaway, it’s safe to say that Charli’s electropop era is dead and buried.👨🏼🎨🎤
Photo
NASA just released 12,000 photos from Artemis 2. Here are our top picks - Space
You can now browse through more than 12,000 photos taken by the Artemis 2 astronauts during their mission around the moon.
The images range from stunning views of Earth to shots of the astronauts inside their Orion capsule to breathtaking images of the moon and the crew’s unique perspective from beyond its far side. They’re the first pictures taken by astronauts traveling beyond low Earth orbit in more than 50 years, and they show our home planet and its celestial neighbor in brand new, incredible ways.🚀🔭
Industry
Fashion for Good project targets textile waste recycling at scale - WWD
A federal court on Thursday ruled that President Donald Trump unlawfully used Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a 10 percent global tariff — a backup plan the president implemented after the Supreme Court struck down his more sweeping worldwide tariffs earlier this year.
A divided three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of International Trade concluded that Trump’s Plan B was similarly unlawful. And the two judges in the majority barred the administration from collecting the duties from Washington state and two companies that sued over the policy.💸📈
Entertainment
FULL VINYL | Urban Organic Soul | Freestyle Set | JMET@Bistro Delta -YouTube
Mixed by DJ JMET | Freestyle Sessions
Genre: 90s/00s R&B, Neo-Soul, Jazz Hop & Rare Groove.
Timeline: 1977 – 2020.
A curated selection of mellow vibes and sophisticated rhythms. No boundaries, no fillers—just a freestyle exploration of the music that moves us.🎧🔊
'The Clean Up' is a weekly newsletter that mixes in some Arvin Goods news, products, as well as stories we saw during the week that are worth a share. From books to podcasts, sustainability to business news, we try to keep it interesting, and fun. If you are not a subscriber, sign up and join everyone who receives The Clean Up directly in their inbox every Sunday.
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