How Martha Stewart-parent Marquee Is Remaking the Motherhood Brand

Motherhood Maternity is getting a fresh start, rebranding as Motherhood with a sleek new logo, new manufacturers for fashion and intimates and a deal to be carried in Kohl’s , starting on Thursday.

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The entry into Kohl’s, which will carry Motherhood in stores and online, marks the brand’s return to brick-and-mortar retailing after the five-year hiatus that started when Destination Maternity Corp. sunk into bankruptcy.

But the retail revival also serves as the latest example of how Marquee Brands is using marketing savvy and well-situated partners to breathe new life into brands that are already well established in the consumer consciousness.

Marquee bought Destination Maternity’s intellectual property, including what is now Motherhood and Pea in the Pod, as part of a $50 million sale supervised by bankruptcy court in 2019.

That deal allowed Marquee to reimagine the brand — without stores, without debt and without the baggage that led it to bankruptcy in the first place.

An Asset-light Approach

“We are asset light, that’s our must-have North Star,” said Heath Golden, chief executive officer of Marquee, in an interview.

Golden said the idea is to be “the world’s preeminent brand accelerator,” owning timeless names and building them out with a global network of partners.

“We focus on what we do best,” the CEO said. “You have a great partner to go out and source, price, [find the] right trend, right quality. And then we help drive top-of-funnel demand and help them get the shelf space and use our global network to go global.

“That’s a winning strategy in a choppy market,” he said.

Marquee is part of a growing contingent of brand management companies that are putting their stamp on the fashion industry, snapping up well-known names and plugging them into the networks of manufacturers, retailers and overseas operators.

The company was founded in 2014 by private equity firm Neuberger Berman and has built a portfolio of 17 brands across the worlds of home and culinary (Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse), fashion and lifestyle (Ben Sherman and Anti Social Social Club) and active and outdoor (Body Glove and Dakine).

All together, those brands represent about $3.5 billion in retail sales.

The Busy Deal Market

Golden said Marquee is in the midst of fundraising and is getting interest from other private equity investors — a process that would help the company position itself to do even more deals.

And fashion is ripe for some more consolidation with many legacy companies struggling to find their footing in a new retail world.

“There’s a ton of quality assets that are either on the market or we believe coming to market,” Golden said. “It’s pretty active. I’m pretty active. There were a few years where no one really transacted, so you had pent up and it’s a bifurcated market today.”

“The consumer’s a bit confused,” he said. “So good brands are having some challenges. That presents opportunity for us. We take brands that have high brand awareness and make them stronger, better, bigger.”

Individualized Approach

Each brand gets its own treatment.

Ben Sherman, which Marquee bought from Oxford in 2015 for $63.7 million , was in the global spotlight last week, supplying the British team with opening ceremony style at the Paris Olympic games.

That came with marketing activations that are part of a bigger plan to position the brand for continued growth.

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“We’re thrilled with where Ben Sherman’s going,” Golden said. “We did just open our first store since COVID in Coal Drops Yard London with a great new shopping area right across from the Google office, above Kings Cross. We’ll have six doors open by 2026.”

As Ben Sherman or Motherhood or any of the other brands grow, so does Marquee.

“We win anytime our partners win,” Golden said. “They’re selling more units at a higher average unit, retail with less obsolescence, which is what drives the royalty flywheel. That is our virtuous cycle.”

Now, Motherhood is taking another lap around that circuit.

The New Motherhood

Topson Downs is now making the maternity apparel for Motherhood and Gelmart International is producing the intimates. Kohl’s said the brand would be an exclusive in-store and be positioned adjacent to its Babies R Us shops.

Marquee sits in the middle and makes sure everything — from the fashion to the intimates to the market — is cohesive.

“Motherhood starts with maternity, but it certainly doesn’t end with maternity,” said Rachel Terrace, chief brand officer at Marquee. “We want this brand to be an entry point for expectant mothers, but then we want to be able to stay with them and service them after the baby comes.

“We are taking a brand that has strong awareness, strong affinity, and excellent heritage and we are reinventing it with best-in-class partners,” Terrace said.

Marquee — which creates television shows and magazines for Martha Stewart and some of its other brands — has a similarly broad take on expanding the Motherhood brand.

There’s the Motherhood Loves seal of approval that steers moms toward baby essentials and services and there’s the Motherhood Loves Community Awards that helps moms share their opinions on products.

“We’re bringing content to the table as well to make this brand,” Terrace said. “We’re really creating a broader community for mothers-to-be.”

Brand Attributes That Connect

Motherhood is in something of a sweet spot for Marquee, meeting many of the criteria that the company looks for as it considers new deals.

As Terrace said: “Does the brand have a very clear and defined set of brand equities? Does it have an authentic brand heritage? Is there consumer love and passion for the brand? Are there brand loyalists associated with this brand? Does the brand have a fair amount of top-of-funnel awareness in particular with a set of consumers who are very relevant purchase drivers?

“A brand accelerator and a brand management company, our job is really to drive demand,” she said. “So driving demand with consumers and driving demand for our partner licensees at retail is what we do every day, is the bread and butter of what we do.”

In addition to TV shows and magazines, Marquee also helps its brands make interesting connections, like the collaboration between Khloé Kardashian’s Good American and Body Glove. And it also works to sync its brands up for the big online marketplaces, like the World of Martha on Amazon, which brings together 17 of Martha Stewart’s licensing partners to create one cohesive shop.

It’s a business model that turns some of the legacy fashion business on its head, with an it-takes-a-village approach and a team of partners instead of one focused more tightly on centralized control.

The brand management model is not a new one, but it’s growing fast. And with Marquee and others adding billions in sales, it’s a look that fashion brands, landlords, manufacturers and the rest of the market is going to have to get used to.

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