Authentic Luxury Group Eyeing John Elliott Acquisition: Sources Said

Authentic Luxury Group is on the verge of making its first acquisition.

Last October, Saks Global, owner of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, and Authentic Brands Group, created a joint venture, Authentic Luxury Group, to grow — and purchase — luxury brands. And sources said John Elliott may be its first addition.

Elliott, a California-based streetwear designer, is apparently searching for a white knight. Three of his six stores — Toronto, Aspen and Madison Avenue — have closed, and the fate of the remaining units is unclear. Elliott is still operating his stores on Lafayette Street in SoHo, West Hollywood and Miami.

Over the weekend, there was a lot of online chatter about Elliott either closing his business or selling it to Authentic Brands Group. However, the John Elliott brand is too small to move the needle at Authentic, which owns more than 50 brands and has $32 billion in annual global retail sales, and doesn’t tick the box of a brand with global expansion opportunities, which Authentic chief executive officer Jamie Salter has long said is a prerequisite to any purchase for his primary company. For Authentic to consider an acquisition, sales would have to be in the $1 billion range.

While John Elliott doesn’t have volume at that level, the brand is among those carried at Saks and Neiman’s and wouldn’t be held to the same criteria under ALG, sources said. Initially, the plan for the group was to focus on luxury and accessible luxury names already in the joint venture’s portfolio including Barneys New York, Judith Leiber Couture, Hervé Léger and Vince. But the long-term plan is to serve as an incubator for brand growth through strategic licensing agreements and distribution across fashion, retail, digital, hospitality, real estate, art and travel.

Authentic had no comment and Elliott declined to comment. Sources said if the Authentic Luxury Group deal materializes, it could happen as early as next week.

Los Angeles-based John Elliott founded his business in 2012 with his lifelong friend and business partner Aaron Lavee and it quickly became a cult favorite among athletes and influencers including Justin and Hailey Bieber, Kanye West, Victor Cruz and LeBron James. He held his first show in New York in the fall of 2015 with a celebrity-packed front row, and then showed several more times during New York Fashion Week before decamping to Paris where he showed his spring 2023 collection in an extravaganza on the rooftop of the Centre Pompidou.

But not long after, sources said, the brand began to lose its mojo and struggle with financial issues. “He changed direction,” said one retailer whose sales with the label fell dramatically. “He had a moment,” another merchant said, becoming a “modern James Perse, a California lifestyle brand for guys who like sneakers.”

Although business during and immediately following the pandemic was strong, sources said, when people returned to work, they looked elsewhere for their wardrobe choices and Elliott was unable to maintain his momentum.

If the brand does indeed get sold to Authentic Luxury Group, it could breathe new life into the business and allow it to expand into other categories and regions.

Elliott grew up in the San Francisco area in the early 1990s when only basketball and skateboarding mattered, he has said. “Young guys would start skate companies with an apparel component, and sometimes those companies would take off. As a child, I saw that as an opportunity. I’m super dyslexic and school is not my forte, but I wanted to own an apparel company and create products that matter to my life,” he said in a 2016 interview.

After college, he worked for Villains, a streetwear store in the city and collected vintage jeans, T-shirts and Champion hoodies in anticipation of one day launching his own brand. He started with men’s only and two years later, won GQ’s Best New Designer of the Year. In 2016, he was nominated for the Menswear Designer of the Year from the CFDA.