Fashion’s Favorite Basics Brand Entireworld Is Going Out Of Business

Beloved direct-to-consumer basics label Entireworld is going out of business. In a candid email to the brand’s mailing list, creative director Scott Sternberg cited the fledgling company’s unsuccessful fundraising as the reason for the closure, writing that Entireworld is a “massive undertaking,” and would have “[required] significant capital to be able to compete with with the countless brands out there.” The remaining stock is being sold at a deep discount on the company’s site.

Sternberg founded Entireworld in 2018, after the dissolution of his previous brand, Band of Outsiders. With Entireworld, he aimed to create basics that customers would “literally live in every day.” The company’s offerings included tees, knitwear, underwear, button-down shirts for men and dresses for women. Sternberg’s soft, desaturated color palette made it a favorite of millennials who survived the years of American Apparel’s regrettable neons basics.

At the beginning of the pandemic, its sweatsuits became a best-selling cult product. Once safety quarantine orders were put in place, Entireworld’s sales shot up 662% in March 2020, compared to March 2019, according to a New York Times Magazine report. And while the brand was lauded by the fashion press and couldn’t keep its sweats in stock, Sternberg hinted at the brand’s financial troubles in that same story, calling it a “constant series of disappointing conversations.” Two key investors backed out during the early pandemic months, and he lamented that his basics brand wasn’t “sexy” enough to catch investors’ eyes. “Investors want something disruptive,” he said. “When they’re with their investor friends they want to say they invested in, like, flavored water or an operating system that changes the way we walk.”

In the email, Sternberg explained that a recent acquisition deal, which would have allowed Entireworld to scale, had “disappeared in a flash,” forcing him to shutter their California-based factory. As the brand winds down, they’re now slashing prices up to 70% on remaining stock, and Sternerg indicated that more pieces would be available on the site within the next two weeks. As of press time, plenty of sizes and colorways are still left.

It’s a heartbreaking end for the company, which he called “something ambitious and beautiful, a little odd, not quite perfect, but always full of love.” Comparisons to the demise of Band of Outsiders are inevitable, but hopefully fashion hasn’t seen the end of Sternberg’s singular vision.