Dive Brief:
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Vince Holding net sales grew 10.5% year over year to $64 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, according to a Tuesday press release. One of the biggest growth drivers was the company’s DTC business, which was up 15.6% for the quarter.
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“Over the last 12 months, we have fundamentally raised the bar for Vince, establishing a new baseline for growth,” CEO Brendan Hoffman said on a Tuesday call with analysts. Gross profit was up nearly 11% to $32.4 million, representing 50.6% of net sales. The company attributed the gross margin rate growth to price increases implemented in 2025, as well as lower discounting, offset by higher tariffs.
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Wholesale for the first quarter grew 5.9% year over year, despite challenges stemming from the Saks Global bankruptcy. Last year, Saks Global accounted for approximately 7% of Vince’s business.
Dive Insight:
Earlier this year, the Saks Global bankruptcy led Vince to report a related $6 million bad debt expense in its fourth quarter fiscal 2025 earnings, but on a Tuesday call with analysts, Hoffman expressed optimism about the future of that relationship.
“[W]e're certainly in a much better place with Saks Global…than we were a year ago,” Hoffman said. “We continue to manage it very closely with their senior management team. We came into the year planning it very conservatively and planning it down from last year.”
Hoffman said that Vince’s wholesale business with Saks Global is “much smaller than our other wholesale accounts at this point,” adding that his company has “been pleasantly surprised with the strength of the business there.”
“We're seeing orders increase and they’ve been good partners in terms of going through this bankruptcy process,” Hoffman said. “A healthy Saks Global, even though it's slightly reduced in terms of footprint from what it was a year and a half ago, is terrific for Vince and good for the industry. That presents some upside for us as we look in the back half of the year and into 2027.”
Vince raised its full-year fiscal 2026 outlook, and now expects net sales to increase between about 7% and 8% year over year, compared to its previous outlook of between 3% and 6%. For the second quarter, Vince expects net sales to grow in the range of 10% to 12% year over year.
Meanwhile, Vince is adding men's suiting to more stores this year. In 2023, the company sold its intellectual property to development conglomerate Authentic Brands Group and formed ABG Vince, which controls wholesale, retail and e-commerce operations. The Vince menswear license with Peerless came shortly after that deal was signed.
“The stores were not originally set up for all these additional categories, and as you know, floor space is precious, but that's where balancing the ability to drop ship with having some merchandise on-site is kind of the next phase of figuring out the way to optimize this,” Hoffman told analysts. “We're experimenting with things like alterations. Things that we didn't really have to think about before are nice opportunities that we're kind of in the process of experimenting and solving.”
Hoffman added that he saw overall strength in the midrange fashion category.
“I definitely think the contemporary segment is having a moment now with some tailwinds,” Hoffman said. “I feel even more confident that Vince is at the top of the list. We speak to our wholesale partners, and we see where we rank.”
