Inside Alo Yoga: The Brand Celebrities Love Mints Two New Billionaires

Forbes

Founded in 2007, Alo Yoga has become a hit with celebrities including Taylor Swift and Bella Hadid. It’s also made a fortune for its founders: Two childhood best friends from Los Angeles  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2025/04/01/the-founders-of-this-lululemon-rival-are-worth-nearly-5-billion-each/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, founders of Aloe Yoga, a hit with celebs like Taylor Swift and Hailey

00:06Bieber, are billionaires.

00:09On February 2nd, Hailey Bieber was photographed walking into an Aloe store in Manhattan, sporting

00:15a black puffer jacket and a pair of the brand's just-dropped limited-edition charcoal green

00:20airlift leggings.

00:22Three days later, the New York Post's gossip site Page Six ran a short article on the new

00:27leggings with the pictures of Bieber and an affiliate link where shoppers could click

00:32and buy the $128 leggings.

00:36In the hotly contested battle for trendiest yoga wear, Aloe is wooing and winning over

00:40many famous fans and using them as part of its marketing push.

00:45Taylor Swift, Bella Hadid, NFL quarterback Joe Burrow, and a long list of influencers have

00:51all been photographed in everything from its $68 biker shorts to a $1400 custom suit.

00:57On its website, there is a section devoted to quote, as seen on Kendall and Kylie, referring

01:03to the famous Jenner sisters.

01:05There's another section featuring Jisoo, a member of K-pop girl band Blackpink, enjoying

01:11Aloe and the West Coast before her summer world tour.

01:15The Jenner sisters and Jisoo are paid to promote Aloe, but most of the other celebs spotted wearing

01:20the clothes are doing so because they want to, according to a company spokesperson.

01:26This glamorous guerrilla marketing has helped Aloe become a fast-growing challenger in the

01:31competitive athleisure category, known for its younger-skewing, street-chic styles.

01:37Referring to the brand, Alexandra Barash, a professor of marketing at the University

01:41of Colorado Boulder's Leeds School of Business, says, quote,

01:45It gives off that vibe of effortlessly cool.

01:48They've done a good job of making it seem natural that the celebrities are spontaneously

01:52choosing these products.

01:55All of this has helped push revenue of Aloe's parent company, Color Image Apparel, up to

02:00nearly $2 billion, Forbes estimates.

02:04It's still a tiny speck of the estimated $394 billion athleisure market, per Dimension

02:09Market Research, that's blanketed with such brands as $10.6 billion in revenue Lululemon,

02:16Gymshark, the gaps Athleta, Fabletics, Vori, Under Armour, and Nike, which recently announced

02:24a partnership with Kim Kardashian's Skims for a new women's athletics label.

02:30But Aloe is a fast-growing player, with estimated revenue roughly doubling over the past two

02:34years and up tenfold since 2020, according to financials reported in past media reports,

02:41thanks to the rising popularity of its yoga brand.

02:45There are now more than 130 Aloe stores around the world, including 31 outside of the U.S.

02:51It's enough to make billionaires of the company's founders, Danny Harris and Marco DeGeorge, who

02:56each own 50%.

02:59Forbes estimates they are each worth $4.7 billion, based on the value of Color Image Apparel.

03:05They were reportedly raising money at a $10 billion valuation in October 2023, but a deal

03:11never came to fruition.

03:13Harris and DeGeorge declined to be interviewed about their net worths for this story.

03:18There are some clouds on the horizon.

03:20Some retailers, including publicly traded Lululemon, whose shares dropped 10% in one day at the end

03:26of March, and is down 23% over the past month, have been rattled by consumer uncertainty and

03:32ongoing threat of tariffs.

03:34Despite this, the category overall has plenty of room to keep expanding.

03:38Morningstar retail analyst David Swartz explains, quote,

03:43This is one of the few strong areas of apparel, which is generally a low-growth industry, so

03:49it's attracted some strong competition and some large investments.

03:54Sales of athleisure apparel are predicted to more than double to $900 billion by 2033,

03:59according to Dimension.

04:02For Harris and DeGeorge, yoga started out as a healthy pastime.

04:06The childhood friends who grew up together in the San Francisco suburb of Los Gatos started

04:11making t-shirts for a local business their senior year, and then opened up a screen printing

04:15company right after graduating from high school.

04:18They built it into Color Image Apparel and later moved into mass manufacturing clothing, mainly

04:23t-shirts and tanks, for wholesale.

04:26Their Bella Canvas brand is now one of the country's biggest t-shirt manufacturers.

04:33For full coverage, check out Jemima McAvoy's piece on Forbes.com.

04:38This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes, thanks for tuning in.

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