It all started when Mike Natenshon’s girlfriend threw out his favorite — but ratty — T-shirt. He set out to replace it with something as comfortable but nothing he could find felt the same. So he solicited his friend Adam Lynch to join him, and together they developed a custom fabric from recycled beechwood and cotton and made their own T-shirt.
That was in 2009 and the company they created, Marine Layer, has now grown into a full lifestyle brand with more than 50 of its own stores across the U.S. and a robust wholesale business.
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The founders, who are East Coast natives who relocated to San Francisco, traveled to New York City to showcase their latest addition, the Patch Bar, next to their NoLIta store on Prince Street. The unique space is behind an unmarked door and down a flight of stairs directly adjacent to the Marine Layer storefront. It was a former speakeasy and the founders were determined to retain as much of that aesthetic as possible.
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“This is a concept store that we’ve been working on for a year now,” Natenshon said, perched on a barstool at the rear of the space. “That’s why we’ve got a bar here.”
Marine Layer has actually occupied the space for a while, but used it as a stockroom. “It was in decrepit shape,” he said. But now, in addition to the bar, it features Art Deco and retro details including tin-tile ceilings, restored brass stools, reclaimed Kentucky stable floors, and velvet banquettes with authentic vintage accents. Shoppers are able to customize Marine Layer’s Cloud 9 T-shirts, fleece and cashmere pieces with more than 70 patches created especially for the space — everything from colorful yarn for classic initials to patches that read: Child of Divorce, Running Late, or flowers, sunsets and cowboy boots.
The New York Patch Bar follows an experiential pop-up the company opened in San Francisco called The Custom Club. Natenshon said the space, on Fillmore Street, has been “wildly” successful. “It’s actually the most profitable and highest revenue store in our fleet, which has been a fun validation of this inclination we had that. There are a lot of places where you can get your initials done, but what we’ve brought to life was more of a curated whimsy that allows for a little bit more self-expression.”
To reflect its location, The Custom Club offers a California-inspired design and includes a six-foot spool of thread, a seven-foot stack of oversize fleece hoodies, and a massive upholstered back wall made from Marine Layer’s Cloud 9 fleece.
The strength of these stores proves to the company that “retail is not dead,” Lynch said.
Overall, Marine Layer operates 55 units and plans call for continuing to add to the fleet.
“Our stores are comping 15 [to] 17 percent year-over-year,” Natenshon said. He believes the strong performance is part of a “pushback” to AI. “Everybody’s incorporating ChatGPT into their life, but there’s also a desire for tactile analog experiences.”
When Marine Layer started, he said, it was at the height of the popularity of the big online brands such as Bonobos, and they believed Marine Layer would follow that same path. But shortly after, they opened a pop-up in San Francisco and their strategy changed. “We thought it would be a good way to get email addresses, but it was profitable the first month, so we signed a long-term lease and that put us on the path of retail experience,” Natenshon said.
They said textiles remain of paramount importance to the brand, with many proprietary fabrics offered, so it’s important that shoppers get a literal “feel for the brand” by being able to touch and feel the merchandise in a store setting.
He said all of Marine Layer’s stores are “neighborhood stores,” small enough that they “could probably fit in an Ikea. But we’re very much a California brand with a casual, laid-back weekend energy that resonates across the country.”
Wholesale represents around 20 percent of Marine Layer’s business with stores such as Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s as well as independents. “Wholesale is a really valuable tool if you keep the right company,” Natenshon said. “We’re channel agnostic and like to meet our customers where they shop.”
Although the company started as men’s only, womenswear now accounts for half of sales. Although sales were slower to build on the women’s side, that end of the business is “really gaining traction” now, Natenshon said.
Looking ahead, the plan is to continue to add six to seven stores a year for the foreseeable future, Lynch said, while also “replatforming” another three or four by remodeling or relocating. “We’ve invested $15 million into our existing fleet over the last two years,” he revealed, “which feeds into the theme that we’re quite long on retail.” Marine Layer has some friend and family investors as well as small institutional partners, they said.
As retail continues to be the focus for Marine Layer, many of those stores will get some version of this new customization program. “Next year, we’ll roll this out to 10 or 15 of our larger doors,” Natenshon said. “It comes back to how we make a meaningful experience. What’s the reason to come in if you can buy something online? People gravitate toward a fun experience.”