Aimee Dudum: Co-Founder of VICI Collection

Episode 868

On today’s episode, we welcome Aimee Dudum Colorado, Co-Founder and Chief Merchandising & Marketing Officer of VICI Collection, one of the leading direct-to-consumer fashion brands to emerge from the Bay Area. Since launching in 2012, VICI has grown from a small startup into a highly loyal fashion destination known for its daily drop model, trend-driven assortments, and deep connection to its customer.
In this episode, Aimee shares the story behind VICI’s growth, the early decisions that helped differentiate the brand, and how she recognized the power of social commerce and influencer marketing before many others in fashion retail. We discuss the evolution of consumer behavior, the strategy behind VICI’s daily drop model, and what it takes to build loyalty in one of the most competitive categories in consumer products. Aimee also opens up about balancing creativity with data, how her leadership style has evolved as the company has grown, and the opportunities she sees ahead for fashion, technology, and retail innovation.
Whether you're building a consumer brand, leading a growing business, or fascinated by the future of retail, this conversation is packed with insights on staying close to your customer, scaling thoughtfully, and building a brand people genuinely love.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up. That I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be. We just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don’t get knocked out. Knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go! Let’s go! Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin Show. Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a fashion brand that people come back to day after day? That’s right, day after day, they are checking out this incredible brand, VICI, that I only recently-I think I was living under a rock. Only recently learned about, and I’m obsessed. So, fashion is one of the most competitive industries in the world. Trends move fast, customer preferences change constantly, and consumers have more choices than ever. But our next guest has developed an incredible following, an incredible brand and company, and what started in 2012 as a small fashion business in Northern California has grown into one of the leading direct-to-consumer apparel brands to emerge from the Bay Area. Woohoo! Shout out to the Bay Area. So today, I’m very excited to be talking to co-founder Amy Dudum, who is the co-founder of VICI, also known as Vichy Collection. So I’m so excited to meet her and have her here with us today to talk about this incredible brand that she has built with some family members, and also just overall what it takes to do what they are doing at Fiji. So welcome, Amy. So excited to meet you.

Aimee Dudum 2:14
So great to meet you too. Thank you so much for taking the time. I’m really excited to share some of our story.

Kara Goldin 2:19
Very very excited. So, for listeners who are just discovering Beachy, like me a few weeks ago, how do you describe the brand and what makes it different from other fashion retailers, direct-to-consumer businesses that are out there?

Aimee Dudum 2:36
We’re super, super focused on our customer and where she’s going in her life, what are her needs at that moment? As you touched on earlier, her needs are ever changing. It’s a competitive landscape. We’re focused on listening to her, product feedback, social listening, and really catering to her specifically. And that’s been our mission since the very beginning. We curate assortments that are really focused on her daily life. So if it’s vacation, if it’s running errands, if it’s I have a job interview, or I just need a cute outfit for my kids’ event this weekend or a date night, we have a full range of assortment that is perfectly curated to make it so the busy woman easy, quick decisions on what she needs to wear, and we get it to her as quickly as possible, but we’re really that sort of helpful best friend and stylist to give her that special guided shopping experience. I love it. Well, VICI is

Kara Goldin 3:30
my is my new obsession, so I’m very very excited about it. Yeah, very excited. Back in 2012, when you co-founded VICI with your stepmom, and I and your father is also involved in the business. I’m not sure if he was way back when you started, but very cool that you guys are all doing this together. Take us back to the beginning. What inspired you all to start Vichy, yeah. So really, it starts with my stepmom Sandy. She’d always been fashion obsessed. She kind of created that within me as a young teenager. But it was really finding out that there was this white space with who are the brands that are catering to mother and daughter, where they can both find something to wear. When we first started with our pop-ups and with our shopping experiences, we were seeing that people wanted to come in and just get styled head to toe. They didn’t

Aimee Dudum 4:30
want to have to figure out what goes with what or how they could maximize certain pieces in their wardrobe, and we provided that one-on-one styling expertise. And Sandy really trained me on that. Rick, my father, has obviously been involved from a operations and finance perspective from the very beginning. But Sandy and myself really partnered together. I was a young college age girl. She was a mom, and really making sure nobody felt alienated when they came into our store. There was a way we could cater to them, and we really. Used social as well as our website to kind of showcase what we call our daily drop, which is our daily curation of assortments. We would feature those on social, so it would almost feel like a you know a catalog type of shopping experience. And then when would you would click through and come to the site as well, you would get that same kind of guided shopping feel. And we made sure that you know the way things were merchandised online through featured shops, the the way things were merchandised in store. If you had date night, if you had vacation, if you had everyday casual, if you just needed to revamp your wardrobe entirely, we would provide that that support and that expertise. And only over time have we seen that need, you know, be more and more as people are just so busy and shopping online is entirely overwhelming, especially for a new brand? And I feel like we found this niche where she comes to our site, she relates to the product, the prices are accessible for her, and the the shipping is incredibly fast. So if you need something, you know. Tomorrow, the next day, we’re there with that package, you know, in a timely fashion.

Kara Goldin 6:05
Well, I will attest to the shipping being so fast. So you guys have done such a nice job with it too. So just to give people a visual of this, I mean, so many cute things. Dresses are just dresses galore, and all very, very reasonably priced. And I mean, like under $100 for many, if not most, of the items that at least I was looking at, which is incredible. So when you merchandise for VICI, I feel like there’s also a situation where you’re constantly changing the items, and you’re constantly selling out on items too. So the consumer is kind of trained to go in and look daily. Would you Would you agree? Because you’re updating

Aimee Dudum 6:57
100. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 6:58
there’s not 10 items, and then all of a sudden, you’re at the end of the season, and that’s why there’s almost no merchandise around. You are setting the bar really high for other apparel companies out there. Did you know that when you were starting VICI, and have you seen that just expand over over time?

Aimee Dudum 7:20
Yeah, and actually, I tie that into one of the things that’s the hardest I think challenge today is there’s a balance between too much choice and having the right diverse assortment for her to have enough to choose from from a print pattern silhouette perspective, especially when it comes to a key category like dresses. I feel like we’ve finally hit sort of that stride where she can come to the site and feel like there’s still a level of curation happening. We’ve all been on websites before where it just feels like what I call spaghetti on the wall. There’s just so much of everything you don’t really know what are the best sellers, what are the what are the styles this brand stands for. There’s a lot of products that don’t have reviews on them, so we really focus on leaning into the styles that season after season our customer votes for, we obviously color refresh them, print refresh them, while still bringing back like tried and true favorites. And then we carefully curate trend based on what we feel is new and relevant for our client. We’re really good about focusing in on what she likes and doesn’t like, and it is our job to carefully curate within all of the trends in the market what makes the most sense for our customer. That’s one thing that I feel like is different with a lot of major retailers and a lot of DTC brands. It’s get as much trend on the website as possible and see what sticks. And I feel like we do our homework and really do what I call a, you know, a demand engine type of strategy. Where yes, there’s a little bit of read and react, but we’re tying hindsights, merchandising insights, trend forecasting, customer data to make sure we’re responding with what she’s looking for. There’s some seasons where something doesn’t check, and it checks the next season, but we’re really thoughtful about making sure our decisions are as informed as possible, because as soon as I an assortment starts to skew in a direction that I think the client doesn’t resonate with, she kind of moves on, and so we really want to keep her attention and keep her focused on oh this is why I love VICI. So we’re really focused on that.

Kara Goldin 9:19
So you built VICI during the rise of social commerce and influencer marketing. What did you see early on that maybe others missed? You know, you’re over 10, you’re you’re 15, almost 15 years old at this point. That you know you’ve sort of rode the wave and come out on top. But what have you done that you think others have really missed?

Aimee Dudum 9:44
Yeah, we were definitely a first, you know, a first starter with organic social and building community. At that point in time, it was really, really very simple to get onto Facebook, to get onto Instagram, and. To start posting about your outfits, about what you were wearing, we were taking pictures of ourselves as well as models that we had at the time wearing our new daily drop looks. Nobody was doing that at the time. It almost served as sort of a catalog at your fingertips. Where she already was in terms of scrolling at this point in time, Instagram was photos, but where she was scrolling pictures of her friends and and posting about her family and what her happenings were, we were there in the midst of those images. With here’s a cute new outfit to buy. Here’s the prices for these items. Here’s the sizes available. So it almost brought the catalog shopping of the in-store experience and online experience right to her fingertips, where she could then go. I’m going to visit their store. I’m going to go on their website. But we were really methodical about making sure our social channels were a place for community. We would engage with any kind of comments or questions on product fit, product quality, speed of shipping, and to this day, our team is responding to every single question and DM we get. We don’t outsource that piece, and we make sure that we stay engaged with the customer feedback on social. And never losing that is so so so important. I feel like brands, once they get to a certain size, want to outsource or disconnect from what the customer wants. I personally read DMs. I personally read comments. If you stop caring about that, it reflects. I feel like in the brand over time. Yeah, I think that

Kara Goldin 11:30
I think that’s so accurate. So the daily drop model. How did that concept come about?

Aimee Dudum 11:38
I would say that from a daily drop perspective, we wanted a curated collection that was really focused on newness, and we wanted to tell curated stories by day. That if it was the beginning of the week, as an example, maybe she’s getting ready in the morning and she’s focused on what are some looks for school drop off? What are some looks to put together for heading to the office? Or I have an important out of town meeting midweek. What am I wearing to a girls’ night out or a date night with my husband? What do I need on the weekend for vacation? We really tried to think by day, even if she’s not shopping, what type of outfit inspiration is she looking for today? And generally speaking, we would look at each singular day as what is the mood she might be in based on what she has upcoming? It’s not always about selling new product. It’s it goes beyond the transaction. We are, and I hear this feedback

Kara Goldin 12:30
all the time, whether that’s from influencers, whether that’s from customers. VICI is a source of daily styling inspiration. How do I wear this blazer X different ways? How what what trend item should I buy this year to just make small tweaks to my wardrobe? We’re giving that guidance to her, and that’s why she’s coming back to us on a daily basis-not just to purchase, but to be inspired by what already exists on our website and social platforms. Is there a color that kind of never goes out of style? I guess that you see you can you can definitely maybe it goes into a print or maybe it’s a solid. But is there one color that is a sure thing versus other maybe another color where it’s extremely seasonal or it just is one that you get high returns on? Have you seen any kinds of trends on that?

Aimee Dudum 13:22
Yeah, actually, the the most interesting thing that’s happened is just the resurgence of brown. Anyone that’s been in retail for a long time knows brown used to be a tricky color, and it’s kind of graduated itself into a new neutral that I think will transcend past sort of the fall season, which was traditionally a time that that color was really important. Obviously, black not exciting, but she always votes for black. Even in the middle of summer, we see black still selling. We are a very color saturated and print focused brand, but we still make sure to keep her nice neutrals that she’s always coming back to us for front and center as well. The one that always surprises me is how much she loves pink. It could be soft blush pinks, it could be hyper bright pinks. She really loves that ultra feminine touch with a lot of her pieces. So we do see a lot of great selling in pink as well.

Kara Goldin 14:13
I love it. And today, what do you see like as the hottest trend? Is it is it pink? Is it florals? What do you see people really gravitating towards?

Aimee Dudum 14:24
Yeah, I mean polka dots are having a huge moment right now, seeing really bright, saturated colors-yellow, orange, red-being super popular right now. And then from a print perspective as well, stripes. We’re in the summer season right now, so she’s really big into stripes, and she’s having a lot of fun with fashion bottoms, so skirts, shorts, fun fashion pants. I’m a millennial, and I’m an elder millennial, so for me, I grew up with like jeans and a cute top. That was my outfit formula, and she’s definitely getting dressed more now, like bottoms up. So, what are those fun pants to wear, and maybe just wear, you know, a more sim. Top with that, so that’s been fun to kind of learn and observe, and it just adds more outfit options into your wardrobe.

Kara Goldin 15:06
So when you look at this consumer, obviously you’re doing tons of analysis, deep dives on this consumer. How frequently are they coming back to not only look but also purchase? And obviously, I mean, they’re really viewing you as as their personal shopper. I think in many many ways, which is awesome.

Aimee Dudum 15:30
Definitely, yeah, they’re coming back to us multiple times a month, sometimes weekly, because we cover such a diverse need, because we have super accessible price points, and we drop newness every single day. There’s just so much for her to choose from, and and as we’ve expanded our assortment, we recently launched athleisure. We have active now. We have a very robust assortment in swimming cover-ups. The the more we’ve assorted into these new categories, more reason for her to stay within sort of the VG collection site to kind of look and pick and choose what she needs, and she she can rely on us. She trusts us. She knows we’ll take care of it. If any issue happens, our team is so on top of making sure this feels like a really elevated client experience. So she knows she can trust and come back to us for any of her needs.

Kara Goldin 16:15
There’s always moments, and I call it the timeline as you’re as you’re building where it’s you just feel like wow that was just a absolute killer win and then there was others that were misses along the way that you thought were obviously gonna do well or you wouldn’t have launched it. Do you have any moments where you really thought something maybe wasn’t gonna make it and that it did, and then something that you weren’t so sure about, but then it just blew out.

Aimee Dudum 16:45
Yeah, it’s a great question. I feel like navigating the post-COVID time period, like many DTC brands, the brand was on fire following the COVID. Right, everyone was at home; they were shopping online, so business was just through the roof then, and it was a lot of athleisure and a lot of lounge, and pivoting back into just everyday life as people were going out again was really tricky to navigate because the world for a period of time was not. It was open, and then it wasn’t, and and being a California based brand, it was really tricky to navigate opening our experiences back up to is she traveling? Is she going on vacation? And I just had a hunch that I knew she was going to want to escape and do all of these things, and so we went full force forward with. And I remember the motto of 2022 was just escapism. Let’s just make sure she has surprise and delight, and a reason to get dressed again and get excited. And it was risky at first because nobody was doing it, and it totally catapulted VICI to the next level. Being able to offer vacation product-that’s when we launched Swim as well. Having a swim assortment, getting really focused on guest of wedding and special event dresses, people were starting to have in-person weddings again and in-person events, but it was a risk to do that. But it was the right risk to take, and I was confident that our customer is a social person and she wants to connect with people, and she’s going to need cute outfits to do it. So we need to be, we need to just move forward with this and and let her move on with her life.

Kara Goldin 18:23
And when you look at like misses, like where maybe I’ll I’ll give an example. We had Bolin Branch, the founder of Bolin Branch, on, and he’s it was very very entertaining as he was talking about building the brand, but he figured just from his own experience that every bed has a has a bed skirt, so he you know doubled down on buying bed skirts, and he didn’t realize that no one ever changes their bed skirt, right? Very different than what your merchandise is. So he had bed skirts in his warehouse forever because he thought like we’re gonna sell bed skirts, but nobody was buying very many bed skirts, and so and they’re still not buying. He said, “I haven’t bought bed skirts in ages, so but they have plenty in stock. Is there any story like that where you really thought, oh, this is going to be great, or even like a new category where you thought, I mean, I think wedding is so great what you guys have done there, but maybe there’s like a different audience where you thought you were going to go find an entirely new audience, and and then you just decided, you know what, we’re going to stay focused.

Aimee Dudum 19:41
Yeah, I think the biggest thing would be managing your inventory. The right, you know, the the resurgence I was just saying coming out of post COVID years can get really out of hand if you’re not managing inventory closely. If you make some bad bets from a trend perspective, from a print and color perspective, you can quickly back up. An inventory, and we did have to learn that the hard way in 2023. We’ve made so many steps to correct that, and we, similar to the daily drop question you asked earlier, we are a read and react business. We keep our inventory tight and clean to make sure that we can stay a healthy business. But that does sometimes mean we miss out on doubling and tripling down on certain things, and maybe there is some misdemand that happens in season. But I would rather be in the healthiest inventory position possible to not put ourselves in a position where we have too much excess. So we’re really very carefully managing that.

Kara Goldin 20:38
So you are working with your stepmom, and or you co-founded it with your stepmom, and your father is involved. What’s it like working with your family? I’ve worked with my husband for years, so people are always asking me about it. But I think there’s a lot of advantages in working. It’s not for everybody, but I’m curious what your take is.

Aimee Dudum 21:02
Yeah, it’s an evolving process. I can say as a 20-something kid that was in this business, I thought I knew everything, and so there was a little bit of you know a learning curve for me. But my stepmom Sandy, my father Rick, and I are so aligned in our purpose and our goals that we, over the many many years of figuring out how to navigate this business, are such a united front in so many things. Mainly being the fact that we are so focused on our customer and why we’re doing what we’re doing. Once you learn to separate the family aspect of the business and say focus on the purpose, it really makes it such a more professional working relationship. When I’m at work, I call him Rick. When I’m with him, I have four children. When he’s when we’re together on the weekend swimming at his house, he’s their grandfather. So it’s it’s separating and being able to say, hey, this is a an individual I have respect for, I have love for outside of of our working relationship, but I’m going to keep the work life separate and and make sure that at work, you know, he’s my boss. He’s the CEO of the business, and and so having respect and and really staying in each of our lanes. But I think that goes both ways. My stepmom Sandy and my father Rick have respect for me and my role and what I’ve contributed to the business as well, and so earning that was really, really important to me. It’s really easy in family businesses for the children to get sort of lost in the work, and I have earned so much of their respect that they trust me, and that’s honestly, I’d say, the biggest accomplishment in our relationship. There’s trust and there’s respect between all of us.

Kara Goldin 22:42
I love it. So you’re leading both merchandising and marketing, and recently you have gone outside of growing the business as a DTC company. I mean, you’ve you’ve had some stores as you were you and I were chatting about retail locations of your own, and you still have one in Nashville. But you’ve gone beyond to partnerships with some major retailers. Can you talk about that, and and maybe what have you learned about growing across those channels that maybe is unique?

Aimee Dudum 23:20
Finding the right retail partners, I think, is really important. There’s been times in the past where we’ve been approached by Amazon, for example. We talked for a little bit and had a small curation at Target. We found great partners in Nordstrom and Dillard’s, especially Dillard’s being so focused on their client as well and curation. It’s really important that you pick the best partners for your brand and your goals. A lot of DTC brands will struggle with traffic or brand awareness and think, “Let me just get on these five platforms and see what that does to my business. And for us, we’re really focused on the right long-term partners that care about their client and are going to serve her with the right level of curation. So, how our brand shows up on other sites is very important to us. And so, we’re strategically picking the right partners that we can invest in relationship with relationships for the long term. So, being selective about retail partners instead of just thinking, let’s you know unlock this with as many partners as possible.

Kara Goldin 24:23
You started this in Northern California and a very, very local outside of San Francisco area, and have now grown it into this incredible, incredible business. Did you come from the fashion industry? Did your father? Did your stepmother like? Did you come from this business, or did you come from this business only as a consumer?

Aimee Dudum 24:48
So I come from a long line of entrepreneurs dating back to my great great grandfather. But my father was in the textile business, and Sandy has always been in fashion, both from a design background. Round and experience in retail, so she already had a vision from a product perspective as well as the customer experience perspective. Those standards were set in place from VICI from day one, and then used my father’s expertise from a fulfillment perspective. So it was really a, I had the social angle of things. I was the one interested from an influencer marketing perspective from an Instagram, and how do we leverage Facebook perspective? But it was really the culmination of all of our experience and talents brought together that was able to bring VICI to to life from day one.

Kara Goldin 25:32
And correct me if I’m wrong, though the D to C part of it and actually hitting one customer. I mean, it’s one thing to do textiles, but it’s it’s like bulk shipments B 2b right? Versus actually doing the individual customer. I I mean that was all new to all three of you, correct?

Aimee Dudum 25:53
Exactly. We were two years into our retail experience in Walnut Creek. We had one also in Newport Beach at the time, and we were-I mean, I remember the sales associates that worked at Nordstrom’s down the street coming into our small, tiny store and being like, “How do you have 30 ladies in here right now? Like they couldn’t figure out how we were driving so much traffic, and it was really social that was bringing them in. We were posting outfits, we were taking phone orders. People were driving 40-five minutes from the peninsula to come to Walnut Creek, and at that point in time, I had heard of something called Shopify, and so I thought to myself, “This looks simple enough. I can do this. Hired a very small team and helped kind of start shipping. The website was built in the back of the the website of the retail store, we were shipping orders from a folding table in the back of the retail store, and slowly but surely, my presence on the sales floor was less and less and less because I was in the back doing orders, and eventually that outgrew that space, and we ended up getting a fulfillment center. We now have 100,000 square feet out here in Fairfield, which is not too far away, so it definitely was one of those businesses that started on a folding table in a very small space and evolved from there.

Kara Goldin 27:08
Well, you have I love that aspect of this too because I know how hard it can be to to build it, but it’s clear that you just decided I’m going to figure this out, and you and and your co-founders and I mean that’s that’s huge I mean that’s that’s really I think so often founders don’t get credit for all the hard stuff and I I get it I get what you’ve done and that’s no small thing so I really think that that’s such a great aspect about Viti as well, and I love that aspect about it. Also, I think leads me as a consumer to want to support it because I really think that you’ve done, you know, you’ve killed it for for the consumer to bring this company to life. Thank you.

Aimee Dudum 27:59
Very

Kara Goldin 27:59
very cool. So, for entrepreneurs, last question: Looking to build a consumer brand today, what’s one lesson from your journey with VICI that you that you wish you understood sooner, or that you want to share with with others that you think is really really important?

Aimee Dudum 28:19
I think having a clear purpose from the very beginning of what you’re trying to build, even if it feels uncharted or scary. Being focused on what that mission is and what that purpose is, and never losing sight of that. I’m always thinking, obviously, of what celebrating the small wins that are happening in the business, but thinking forward to what are we trying to build and staying focused on that when it gets hard, because it’s always going to get hard. They’re not every day is going to. You’re not going to find wins in every day and every week. You’re going to hit seasons of things where things feel more challenging. But I’m so driven to serve our client base and and for more people to learn about VICI and for us to help make their lives easier that it motivates me every single day, if I’ve learned anything, it is to be fearless about what you care about and what you feel like your talents are and what your value is, even if it feels scary. I spent too many years feeling like I wasn’t capable of carrying this brand into this next kind of stage of life because of you know my experience not being as much as other people and comparing and contrasting sort of what my contributions were, but the purpose I have and the value I bring are enough. And so, not doubting yourself and and moving forward based on you know that combination of the insights and the data, but the founder gut that you have, I care a lot and weigh that equally now. I spent a lot of time working with a lot of people that cared too much about data and not enough about the customer or the gut, and so I’ve got a good I’ve got a good balance of those things now, and and that is very very hard to learn.

Kara Goldin 29:57
I love it. Well, Amy Dudum, thank you so. Much for joining today. VICI is so incredible. What you all have built, I encourage everyone to check it out and purchase. Have a lot of fun on the site. Come back regularly. Their community and their social is bar none. I mean, it’s it’s really really great. So and for everyone listening, thank you as well for joining today. So many great founder stories on the Kara Goldin Show. So I’m really, really happy that this community is here to to listen. So again, again, Amy, thank you so much for coming on, and until next time on the Kara Goldin Show,

Aimee Dudum 30:44
thank you.

Kara Goldin 30:46
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin Show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal best-selling book, Undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint: We are here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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