Everlane's Next Era: The Creative Director We Need Now

A board member's invitation to the visionary who will define our next chapter

“Confess I loved you from the start” — Laufey, "From the Start," written by Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir and Spencer Stewart, 2022.

The Truth About Fashion's Biggest Lie

Fourteen years ago, I sat across from Michael Preysman as he outlined an idea so audacious that seasoned retailers called it suicide. "What if," he asked, "we told customers exactly what things cost to make?"

The room went silent. In fashion, an industry built on markup mystique and manufactured scarcity, this was heresy. Showing factory costs? Revealing margins? Admitting that a $200 sweater costs $38 to produce?

"You'll destroy the dream," they warned. "Fashion is aspiration, not arithmetic."

Michael smiled. "Maybe arithmetic is the new aspiration."

Years later, when asked if Everlane would ever open stores, he said he'd rather shut the company down than go brick-and-mortar. Retail came eventually, but the point was clear: Everlane wasn't built to follow rules. It was built to break them.

We proved something the industry still struggles to accept: truth creates more desire than deception ever could. Radical transparency isn't a constraint on creativity. It's creativity's greatest catalyst.

Now, fourteen years later, we stand at an inflection point. The operational architecture is complete. The brand truth is established. What we need is the creative visionary who can transform transparency from philosophy into poetry.

The Canvas Today

Millions of customers who don't just buy our products, they evangelize our mission. A new CEO in Alfred Chang, who turned PacSun from near-bankruptcy into cultural phenomenon and sharpened Fear of God's luxury positioning. Fresh capital from L Catterton. A product line evolving from perfect basics into clean luxury.

We've won the commercial middle. But commerce and culture are different conquests.

The Laufey campaign this fall proved what's possible. There's one image I can't shake: Laufey, larger than life, sitting in a miniature world she's outgrown, our tiny Everlane building at her feet. Transparency made literal, the brand laid bare as a dollhouse. Nothing hidden, everything visible. Yet somehow more magical because of it.

That single frame generated a 10% jump in order values. But more importantly, it showed what happens when radical honesty meets radical creativity.

That was the trailer. We need someone to direct the feature film.

Distribution Is the Brand

Every iconic brand emerges from a distribution revolution. P&G didn't buy ads on soap operas, they invented them. Abercrombie wasn't a store, it was theater. Instagram created Everlane's first era, turning product shots into a minimalist movement.

Today's challenge is different. TikTok creates overnight sellouts but rarely builds lasting brands. It makes moments, not movements. The difference has never been starker.

The next iconic fashion brands won't treat distribution as an afterthought. They'll design it into their DNA. Distribution isn't just the channel anymore. It's the stage where brand meaning gets created.

Clean Luxury isn't just an aesthetic. It's a world waiting to be built. The Creative Director we hire will be its architect, ensuring every campaign, every touchpoint, every moment reinforces why Everlane matters.

The Role, Really

This isn't about pretty pictures. It's about architecting how America thinks about fashion for the next decade. You'll report directly to Alfred, with a mandate that's simple and devastating: make transparency magnetic.

Picture this: Fashion Week 2026. While others parade down runways, we livestream from our factories. The front row isn't celebrities but the workers who make our clothes. The show isn't fantasy, it's reality, more compelling than any fiction. That's making transparency magnetic. That's turning truth into theater.

You'll orchestrate:

• Campaigns that make transparency feel like luxury

• Creative that transforms ethics into emotion

• Visual language that makes honesty the highest aspiration

• Brand moments that prove sustainable can be stunning

The role offers $160,000 to $195,000 base, because even our job postings practice radical transparency. But the real value lies in equity, in building something permanent, in creating work that redefines an industry.

The Moment We're In

Fashion stands at a breaking point. Luxury has priced itself into irrelevance, $5,000 bags as museum pieces. Fast fashion races to the bottom, $5 shirts that dissolve in three washes. The middle, where life actually happens, sits abandoned.

Everlane owns that middle commercially. Now we need to own it culturally.

That requires creative leadership that understands modern brands aren't built through interruption but invitation. Not through aspiration but identification. Not through perfection but truth.

We've proven transparency works. Now we need to make it wonderful.

The Person We’re Looking For

Fourteen years on this board, I've never been more certain about what comes next. I can already see the campaign that makes fashion reconsider everything. The visual language that makes transparency feel inevitable. The creative vision that transforms Everlane from fashion's best-kept secret into its most important voice.

You're out there. The creative leader who sees transparency not as limitation but liberation. Who understands that showing everything requires more creativity, not less. Who gets genuinely excited about making truth more compelling than fiction.

You've spent twelve-plus years building campaigns that moved culture, managing teams that moved mountains, creating work that moved metrics in the right direction. But metrics aren't why you're reading this.

You're reading because you're tired of using your talents to perpetuate fashion's fantasies. Because you want to create work that matters for a brand that matters in a moment that matters.

Your Move

→ Send your vision to recruiting@everlane.com

Don't send a traditional portfolio. Show us the Everlane campaign living in your imagination. The one that would make the fashion world stop and reconsider everything. The one that would turn my fourteen years of belief into the foundation for the next fourteen years of growth.

Show me how you'd make transparency the ultimate status symbol. Because here's what I know: Everlane was never about clothes. It was about creating clean luxury, where truth builds trust and transparency becomes aspiration.

Fourteen years ago, we started with a simple question: What if we told the truth?

That question built a $200 million brand.

Imagine what your questions could build.