SAME’s Shea Marie Reveals How She Built Her Brand

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When Shea Marie co-founded her fashion brand SAME in 2015, she never knew it would become a full-fledged business. Shortly after her rise as a top fashion influencer, she knew she wanted a more permanent creative outlet offline. What started as a passion project has now become an it girl-beloved label, expanding from swimwear to a full ready-to-wear offering—but Shea’s still got a lot on her to-do list! As the temperatures drop and the holidays set in, we caught up with Shea on the story behind her brand, becoming a businesswoman, and how she’s planning to spend her (hopefully) first white Christmas away from the West Coast.

What inspired you to launch SAME?
When we launched SAME, it was 2015. At the time, I was one of the OG fashion influencers. My life had changed drastically in just a few years. I had gone from working a job [where] I was making $12 an hour, I was living in a two bedroom apartment with four girls, and in a matter of a couple years, I was traveling all over the world, sitting front row at all the best Fashion Week shows. As much as my life changed so quickly because of social media, I was always nervous that it could go away just as fast as it came—so I wanted to build something that was longer lasting. I’d always been thinking since the beginning of my career: what can I build that’s going to be long lasting? Back then, there wasn’t any sort of blueprint for influencers or celebrities to launch brands. It wasn’t like it is today! It was very much trying to figure it out completely on your own. I had a friend, one of my really good friends, who owned a swimwear factory in Los Angeles, so it seemed like a good place to start, because I already had that connection. I so I had this idea that was very unique for swimwear. It wasn’t being done at the time; 10 years ago, the swimwear industry was very different. Swim was just meant to be worn to swim in, and then covered up. I really wanted to make it its own fashion category, and more fashion-forward and cool and [making] statement pieces on its own. I came up with this design, and we launched it together.

Shea Marie

Tell us about the name—it’s so unique! Where did “SAME” come from?
It’s the first and last letters of “Shea” and “Marie,” so the “S” and the “A,” and then the “M” and the “E.” I did that because at the time, people were like, “Oh, you need your brand to be your name, and you need to be the face of it if you want it to work.” I was like, “No, that doesn’t make sense to me.” I want it to be able to live and stand alone on its own, without me. I don’t want to be the face of it. I never have been. I always wanted to be the designer, the creative, the entrepreneur behind the scenes. It seemed like a safe idea, in case I did ever happen to be wrong in the future and I needed to expand it out, it could work.

Shea Marie

When did you realize SAME’s business had taken off, and the brand was becoming a success?
It was basically right after COVID-19; before that, it was [more of] a passion project. I worked on it part-time. It was just a fun thing for me. I was really focused more on being a content creator and influencer and all the brand deals I was doing. Then, during COVID, we switched to a DTC model. We had been in every store before that, every luxury store: Bergdorf’s, Saks, Neiman’s, Selfridges, all of them. During COVID, they all canceled their store orders and we ended up with all this inventory. We literally thought we were maybe going to have to shut the brand down. We didn’t know what was going to happen! I think what happened is, COVID ended up actually being good for swimwear because women weren’t buying dresses and shoes and all these things that they had spent all their money on in the past. They were buying leisure, comfy clothes and activewear. When the summer came around, you could lay out in your backyard, or if you were close to a beach or lake or an ocean. We did really, really well that year. Then we were like, “Okay, we’re going to stick to this DTC model and see how it goes” After that is when I decided, “I’m going to slow down on all the other things I was doing and focus on this, because this really has the potential to be something big.” In the past four years, we’ve seen exponential growth.

Shea Marie

You just added ready-to-wear to SAME. What inspired that choice?
I always wanted to expand the brand. I love design, I love fashion, and it was just being at the right place to do it financially, [and] finding the right partners. It’s completely different manufacturers and factories than swimwear. It was just a long process figuring all that out, but I always knew it was going to happen. SAME is very unique in the fact that not very many swimwear brands can jump that category into ready-to-wear easily. Usually they go into activewear, stay in that realm. But over the past decade, we really did start pretty much all of the big swimwear trend trends and people look to us as being fashion-forward, trend-seeding, very cool it-girl. It gave us the ability to where I felt really confident moving into ready-to-wear, that it would be successful and worth the investment we had to put into it.

Walk us through your new resort collection. What are some of the new styles you’re excited about?
Because we just launched ready-to-wear in July, we didn’t get to truly do a fall collection this year. Our first fall collection is going to be next year, but we did a resort collection, which was kind of right. We started with dresses that were going to launch in July. They were more summer. I was calling it effortless, day-to-night pieces, like your out-of-office wardrobe. For fall, we launched some of those best-selling dresses in my favorite fall colors. We did beautiful chocolate brown, red, fun holiday dresses, but we didn’t get to do a true fall collection. That’ll come next year—we’re working on it now! When you’re thinking real jackets, leathers, coats, all these things that I love and want to do it’s all a process—and it takes time.

Shea Marie

What fall fashion trends are you excited about right now, and why?
I have a fall color palette that I’m loving—everything chocolate brown and red. That’s everything that I bought for fall this year, and I’ve been wearing, I had this really cool red belt, and I’ve been wearing chocolate dresses with the red belt. I like that combo, also mixing leathers. I’m into [wearing] three different types of leathers. The other day I had on this beautiful leather trench that was embossed with alligator [patterns], and I had boots on that were embossed with snake [patterns] in a different color.  I’m really into oversized, cropped leather jackets, a little bit masculine in oxblood or wine. That’s a vibe. I’m into short shorts with tights— a big leather jacket, short shorts, tights underneath.

If you could only pack three pieces from your new collection for a trip abroad, what would they be and why?
Depends on where I’m going. Are we going somewhere tropical?

Sure! Let’s book the flight!
My absolute favorite piece from our resort collection is our crochet loop-knit maxi [dress]. It’s this beautiful, custom thin crochet weaves that we did. We spent a year and a half developing it, because one of the things I say that a indicator of a brand who is doing stuff quickly and cheaply is, if you see a crochet dress that’s in the exact same pattern across so many brands? They’re choosing a stock knit or stock weave—and there’s a few. I always tell my friends, “Don’t buy that.” It’s literally just stock. It’s not custom, It wasn’t a custom design, anything like that. We have this custom one, and it’s really beautiful. It has these little contrast trims; it’s more of a cover-up, but it’s so chic, it’s so elevated, very cool. That’s what I would take for a cover-up for night. We have this beautiful long, gold, sparkling gown, but it’s also casual because it’s a knit as well. It’s a high neck long sleeve, but it has a super high slit on the hip and it has a couple hook and eyes, so you can make the slit literally up to all the way above your thigh. Especially if you’re on a tropical vacation, you want to be cute at night, you want to slowly unhook it. I thought that was fun. I would take that for night. Because it’s a knit, it still makes it casual enough to wear it—it looks both fancy and casual, which I like. I would say those are my top two. For a holiday trip, I would take our red ruffle mini dress—that is our top seller right now. People are obsessed with it. It comes in a mini or a midi, and it is just the dress you could wear to every single holiday party.

Shea Marie

What are your favorite autumn traditions?
I grew up on the West Coast, so it really wasn’t until five years that I ever saw the leaves changing. To me, it was the most magical experience. Multiple times, I’ve done a road trip through Vermont and northern New York and the Adirondacks. That’s such a beautiful tradition to get fall started. It’s that crisp air, the leaves are changing. When I first went I couldn’t believe it—you see photos, and then you see it in real life, and you’re like, “This is crazy.” It’s like a rainbow forest. That was always something that I love to do. I didn’t do it this year because I’ve been in California and it’s still pretty warm here, so it doesn’t feel as much like fall. But I do this thing on Sundays that I call Soup Sundays, where I make a cozy soup. I feel like that makes me feel like it’s fall. And then good candles, right? I don’t put up Christmas decorations too early, but the fall-smelling candles like the fits and cinnamon, nutmeg, I love all that. That gives you the fall feeling.

Do you have any go-to looks when dressing for holiday parties?
I’m really into red right now. I think that that’s fun for the holidays. I’m into a red minidress paired with black tights. I think one thing to keep in mind, though, is the red has to be very specific. You don’t want it to look “Santa.” It has to have a hint of “old money” red, almost. It’s a hint of burgundy, but just slightly so. When we were designing our red [at SAME], we went through so many iterations of red. It’s so funny how much a little change makes such a difference, from something looking like Santa’s costume to something looking high-end, chic, rich. I would say that is what I’m really into right now. For New Year’s, I always love a sparkly moment. It’s the one time you can really get away with it. I usually do something fun and festive for New Year’s. Last year, I wore a a brown, sparkly minidress that had feathers on it, tights, a good pair of heels.

Any fun plans for Thanksgiving or the holidays?
So many plans coming up! Thanksgiving not as much, but for Christmas, I’m going to Africa and to Paris. I’m really excited about that. My boyfriend’s birthday is right before Christmas, and he really wanted to go to Africa for his birthday. So, we’re going to Africa, we’re going to Rwanda, we’re going to trek with the gorillas. Then we’re going to spend Christmas in Paris, which I’ve never done. I feel like it’ll just be magical! I probably won’t get a white Christmas in Paris. I grew up in California—every Christmas has been warm! So if not this year, next year, it was my top to-do—to go somewhere where there is snow on Christmas.

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