Audrey McLoghlin And Frank & Eileen

The journey of Frank & Eileen, launched by Audrey McLoghlin in 2009, is defined by a powerful vision: to redefine women’s fashion with luxurious Italian menswear fabrics. However, this vision has been tested repeatedly, and now, with the tariff turmoil.

Frank & Eileen was launched during the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent failure of McLoghlin’s previous businesses, resulting in personal bankruptcy. She later faced challenges from COVID-19 and the Los Angeles fires.

From Menswear Fabric to Timeless Women’s Fashion

Frank & Eileen reinvented the women’s button-up shirt into a fashion statement. During the conceptualization of the business, McLoghlin owned four multi-brand specialty clothing stores but observed a void in the market. She noticed that women’s clothing brands weren’t using the timeless, beautiful shirting fabrics available for men.

Her inspiration came from a book of Italian menswear fabrics. She envisioned using these fabrics to create cool menswear-inspired, sexy, feminine button-up shirts for women. She named the company after her grandparents, Frank and Eileen, whose classic love story symbolized the timelessness and beauty she wanted to capture in her designs.

The 2008 financial crisis posed a significant obstacle that shaped the company’s DNA. McLoghlin’s engineering background and resilience helped her navigate the challenges, turning disadvantages into advantages and evolving into an omnichannel global fashion brand.

The company is a certified B Corp, reflecting McLoghlin’s long-held values. The certification signifies that a company meets high social and environmental performance standards, public transparency, and legal accountability. “I always felt like we’ve operated as a B Corp. I felt like it’s just part of our DNA, of how we built the company, the brand and our values,” said McLoghlin.

McLoghlin is also deeply committed to giving back, which led to the Frank & Eileen Giving Pledge. This initiative supports women entrepreneurs through a $20 million pledge that is used for scholarships and programs through 2030 at top entrepreneurial schools at Babson, MIT, and Stanford, as well as a special Los Angeles school.

Bill Aulet, managing director at Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, said “Audrey is a visionary, mission-driven entrepreneur… Through her Giving Pledge, she’s making society a better place by helping to make more and better entrepreneurs, raising the bar for the whole field. This alignment of visions is why at MIT we are so excited to collaborate with her.”

Frank & Eileen recently launched House of Frank & Eileen, a community design house that collaborates with iconic women to create capsule collections. The inaugural collaborator is actor, author, and entrepreneur Julianne Moore. “Working with Frank & Eileen has been a truly rewarding experience,” said Moore. “The brand’s dedication to empowering women and building strong communities resonates deeply with my own values, and I’m proud to be a part of this exciting initiative.”

Building a Crisis-Ready Fashion Brand

A series of significant obstacles marked Audrey McLoghlin’s journey as an entrepreneur, each presenting unique challenges that tested her resilience and determination. Her ability to navigate these challenges has not only defined her path but also shaped the very essence of Frank & Eileen.

The economic downturn in 2008 presented an almost immediate threat to her budding ventures. The timing of her brand’s launch, coinciding with the collapse of the global economy, created an environment of enormous difficulty. McLoghlin faced the daunting task of introducing a new brand into a market that was contracting rapidly, forcing her to close her existing four specialty clothing stores and a wholesale line of t-shirts and dresses that were failing.

The weight of financial obligations from her previous ventures threatened to derail her efforts to establish Frank & Eileen as a growing company. It took McLoghlin three years to generate enough revenue from Frank & Eileen to pay for personal bankruptcy, a testament to her perseverance and commitment to rebuilding. “It took another 10 years to build a credit score,” sighed McLoghlin. “I had to pay cash for everything for 10 years. I couldn’t even get a credit card.“

During this time, McLoghlin cultivated a “warrior culture” for Frank & Eileen with the mindset, skills, and unity necessary to effectively navigate challenges. She promoted resilience, problem-solving, collaboration, and efficiency, which are crucial for businesses to weather such economic storms. The team is still together.

During the pandemic, McLoghlin first focused on damage control. Recognizing the severe impact of mass cancellations, she prioritized the stability of her supply chain partners. Instead of passing on the cost of cancellations to her suppliers, which could have forced them into bankruptcy, she and her team analyzed their fabric inventory and redesigned collections on the fly. This approach allowed Frank & Eileen to continue producing and shipping products when many other brands could not, meeting the unexpected demand from retailers whose businesses were recovering faster than anticipated.

Simultaneously, McLoghlin recognized the need to re-launch Frank & Eileen’s e-commerce capabilities. The company had fortuitously been in the process of redesigning its e-commerce site, with a launch planned later in 2020. McLoghlin seized this opportunity, investing more resources into capitalizing on the surge in online shopping. The timing was ideal, as consumers, under lockdown, were eager for online shopping experiences.

Just a few months ago, McLoghlin faced the challenge of the Los Angeles fires. The need to support her team, customers, and the wider community forced McLoghlin to temporarily halt business operations to focus on providing aid and support to her team and customers.

McLoghlin acknowledges that “challenges come with the territory” for entrepreneurs, and Frank & Eileen is again facing uncertainty. However, she is sanguine: “I have no plans to make any reactionary changes to our supply chain.” This approach is supported by the company’s diversified production: “We’re in a fortunate position,” McLoghlin explains, “half of our production is vertical here in the U.S., and the other half is in Europe, so we’re not feeling the pressure as intensely as some other supply chains.” She remains committed to the brand’s founding principles: “When I launched Frank & Eileen, the goal was to work with the best textiles in the world, and that commitment hasn’t changed.” Instead of reactive measures, the focus is on long-term stability. “We’ve already navigated two major crises—the Great Recession and COVID—and I have no doubt,” McLoghlin asserts, “we’ll come through this crisis even stronger.”

McLoghlin has demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt, innovate, and lead with empathy. Her journey is a powerful example of how obstacles, though challenging, can forge resilience and drive innovation to build a sustainable women’s clothing brand.