More than a decade after leaving corporate finance, a former Delaware global investment manager has launched an inclusive clothing brand with the goal of catering to women on the go.
Sisu Athletics launched on June 22 as a direct-to-consumer brand. It debuted with nine pieces, seven of which are collection mainstays. They are a blazer, a trouser, a V-neck top, an asymmetrical sleeveless cowl, a button up shirt, a wrap dress and a reversible dress. In addition, Sisu has introduced a graphic T-shirt and a relaxed V-neck top.
Prices for the pieces range from $68 to $358 and are targeted at women who want to streamline their wardrobe while also having pieces that easily coordinate. More importantly, the clothes are made with stretch and are intended for women in between sizes who struggle to find a perfect fit off the rack. The pieces come in sizes four through 16.
Finding a good fit was a problem Sisu Athletics founder Alisa Rose came up against during her years in corporate America. She spent the first part of her career in banking, including as a global investment manager with Citibank in its New Castle office.
Burned out from the “rat race,” 12 years ago she left the industry to strike out on a different path, eventually finding her way into the fitness industry. In 2011, Rose launched Art Fitness, which offers personal training, including for worker’s compensation. Located at 2807 Concord Pike in North Wilmington, the studio also helped spark the idea for Rose’s latest endeavor.
After seeing her clients – many of them women – hauling numerous bags to and from the studio with the various garments they’d need for a single day, paired with their frustrations about clothing not fitting right, she was inspired to create a line to fill that gap.
The struggles she saw her clients going through harkened back to her own experience both when she held down a corporate career and later as an entrepreneur.
“I realized that there was a miss in the market and that was finding very well-fitted clothes that fit women who didn't have the straight up and down size four figure, us women that are well traveled, and our bodies show that, 'Hey, we've lived a good life,'” Rose said.
Her goal was to create apparel that could easily transition for multiple occasions and that could layer with one another or other items in a woman’s wardrobe. That might look like any combination of a day in the office, a networking event, running errands, picking up kids, or going out for dinner or drinks.
She also wanted to create pieces that suited a range of women like entrepreneurs, CEOs, doctors and stay-at-home moms alike who wanted to look put together no matter the situation. That meant creating pieces that could be worn with other garments as well as a range of footwear, like sneakers, sandals and heels.
To accommodate the look Rose was after, the clothes are made with two- or four-way stretch so they suit different body types. The fabrics wrinkle minimally, are machine washable and are made to feel like they could be worked out in, though she doesn’t imagine many women will.
“I was looking for high quality, technical fabric that had that performance aesthetic to it, but elevated,” she said.
The pieces are produced in small batches in Los Angeles from fabrics manufactured in the U.S. and have touches like a functional pocket. The blouse also features a modesty button to prevent gaping at the bust.
To give the various styles more personality, each garment has a name. They include the Jade asymmetrical cowl neck that Rose described as “a little flirty and a little fun,” the Trinity wrap dress, which is fun but a little upscale, and the Destiny blazer is for the woman feeling “fearless and a little sassy.”
More than speaking to personality traits, Rose hopes they imbue the wearer with that message. Creating a community of like-minded women is one of Rose's goals with the brand which is “all about living a life with purpose, being confident and feeling empowered,” she said.
The brand draws on that in its own name too. In Finnish, sisu means “extraordinary determination, courage and resolutions in the face of extreme adversity,” Rose said, noting the word spoke to her and her journey.
Rose sees the brand carving out a niche in the industry as it doesn’t fall strictly into either athleisure or work apparel. Rather, she deems it hybrid apparel, noting that some brands like Argent and M.M.LaFleur are her closest competitors, but even they lean more heavily into the work aspect with their lines.
Her hybrid approach became all the more relevant when Covid-19 struck. Though Rose got the idea for Sisu Athletics in 2019 and formed the business in 2020, her timeline was delayed by the pandemic. Nonetheless, the change in modern work has made the brand more timely, she believes.
“I think the pandemic really put a spotlight on the need for this hybrid, this need for flexibility and comfort, and not so much this rigid apparel that was once required if you were in a corporate setting,” she said, noting the way dress codes have changed along with how and where people work.
Sisu Athletics has been self-funded though Rose raised $14,000 through a 45-day Kickstarter campaign last spring, funds that went toward production. The campaign, however, was largely focused on generating brand awareness and getting additional feedback as she readied to bring the collection to market.
Despite not having a fashion background, Rose designed the pieces herself. To help determine what those pieces would look like, Rose created an online focus group of over 1,500 women, asking them about their clothing preferences and where other garments fell short.
“I wanted those pieces that she could just put it on, know that it was going to be comfortable, it was going to be flexible, and that she wouldn't have to pack all these bags to get through her day,” Rose said.
Now that the line has launched, Rose expects to spend the next 12 to 18 months focused on branding and marketing as well as fine-tuning the pieces.
She said more than growth she’s focused on putting out garments that fulfill the need for which she created Sisu Athletics in the first place.
“Growth will come but my main focus is just creating a quality product that sticks to our core value of craftsmanship, durability and flexibility and just fine-tuning that and building that community of women,” she said.
