Courtesy of Outdoor Voices
Outdoor Voices is going founder mode — literally.
The apparel brand Tyler Haney founded in 2013 said Monday that it was bringing the entrepreneur back after a controversial five-year separation. Haney said in a video posted to the brand’s Instagram on Monday that she’d been working on a new collection with the brand for about the last nine months.
“I’m so excited to step back into this role as founder, as an owner, and as a partner,” she said in the video.
As of Monday, the brand had deleted all other content aside from the video from its Instagram page.
Haney and OV parted ways in 2020 after the company had reportedly sustained losses of as much as $2 million a month in 2019, Business of Fashion reported.
OV’s new leadership told Business Insider in 2021 that the company had managed to turn a profit for the first time.
But, from the sidelines, Haney publicly criticized OV as missing the mark.
“Yikes! Y’all have lost your way,” she posted in a since-deleted comment from 2023 on a photo of a green polo dress that the brand posted on social media.
“The future is not bright for the OG Exercise Dress,” she said in another post from 2023.
Haney went on to launch new ventures, including a plant-based energy drink and a blockchain customer loyalty community called TYB.
Now back at OV, Haney said she’s bringing the brand back to its “Doing Things” mission to “maximize happiness through movement and celebrate sweat.”
“It’s been super cool to reassemble the OG creative team and some new players,” Haney said.
Private equity firm Consortium Brand Partners said in June that it had acquired Outdoor Voices with the intent of re-establishing the “core pillars” Haney founded the brand on: people, planet, and product.
CBP also owns a majority stake in Reese Witherspoon’s Southern lifestyle brand Draper James.
CBP president Jonathan Greller said in a June statement that Outdoor Voices “faced challenges within its business framework,” but that the brand is now the “healthiest it’s ever been.”
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