Ivanka Trump
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
The Ivanka Trump Collection was an eponymous womenswear brand founded in 2011 by Ivanka Trump, built around her persona as a professional woman. It sold affordable work-oriented apparel, shoes, handbags, jewelry and accessories — sheath dresses, career wear, cardigans and office-ready shoes priced around $150 — carried by Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, DSW, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Amazon and Zappos. Fortune reported wholesale revenue of $47.3 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2017. The brand was shuttered on July 24, 2018.
02 / Ivanka Trump FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
After the 2016 election the brand became politically polarized: the #GrabYourWallet boycott urged stores to drop Trump-branded goods, and retailers including Nordstrom (citing poor performance), Burlington, Belk and later Hudson's Bay removed the line; online sales fell nearly 55% in the year to June 2018. At the same time, Trump's role as a White House senior adviser imposed ethics restrictions — the company was ordered not to expand internationally and needed her approval for new domestic partnerships (it turned down a 2017 Japan deal) — which strangled growth. With sales declining and the business unable to operate normally, she closed it as the only fair outcome for her team.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
Ivanka Trump ended operations.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
The Ivanka Trump brand was launched in 2011 (re-launched in its current form in 2014) and peaked with $47.3 million in wholesale revenue in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2017.
- 02
In 2017–2018, amid political backlash and the #GrabYourWallet boycott, retailers including Nordstrom and Hudson's Bay dropped the line; online sales dropped nearly 55% in the year to June 2018.
- 03
On July 24, 2018 Trump announced the brand's closure, citing her White House role and ethics restrictions: 18 employees were laid off and licensing agreements were allowed to expire.