The brand founded in Sydney has embraced social media to fuel its meteoric rise. (Source: WhiteFox/Instagram)
The latest corporate tax transparency report is out, and it is a treasure trove of information on a bunch of privately held companies.
All the big names are in there, with their detail laid bare. Global industrials, major financials, major manufacturing concerns. And big fashion houses. And it was among that last group that I saw a name that surprised me.
A name that is new on the scene. Streaking ahead of Gucci and catching up with Hermes, almost, in only its second year on the list, is White Fox.
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White Fox is quickly becoming a giant in the fashion game.
Let’s say the obvious part out loud; $400 million-plus is a lot of revenue. The corporate tax transparency report is designed to shine a light on big business. It’s not there to go after family businesses, it is designed to cast sunlight on the big players, in the name of transparency.
The threshold for entry is $100 million in income (i.e. revenue). White Fox has easily blown past that threshold, twice now. And its second appearance on the vaunted list has made more than twice as much splash as its first…
Well may you ask. If you are not on Instagram, don’t have daughters, or do not live in an area blessed with private girls schools, you can be forgiven for being unfamiliar with the brand, and being unaware of its connotations.
This is one of those Baader-Meinhof things where now you hear of it, you will see it everywhere. White Fox is a brand of women’s clothing, with a specialty in hoodies – slouchy hoodies, emblazoned with the logo on the back. Pass by a frozen yoghurt store on a weekend and you will surely see a clamouring crowd sporting one of the company’s $80 garments.
You don’t make the logo so large unless the brand image is immaculate. So who are these guys and how on earth have they risen to the top so quickly?
The answer: this brand is social-media first. At the absolute top of their website is the Instagram logo and the number of followers they have (2.7 million). Where some fashion brands would emphasise the authenticity of their relationship to garment-making and imply the strength of their brand is a downstream effect, White Fox shows absolutely zero shame about doing things the other way round.
“[H]arnessing the power of social media and influencer marketing ahead of the game, they quickly built a brand destined for success,” the company boasts.
It’s an inversion of how brands are traditionally built, and the young generation are here for it. The numbers don’t lie. $400 million in revenue can’t be wrong! And did I mention profits?
The corporate tax transparency report includes taxable income, which, depending on a few moving parts, can be broadly seen as profits. White Fox declared a stonking $146 million in taxable income in 2023-34. That’s profits from their global operations, of course, they sell around the globe, despite not having any physical stores anywhere (another contrast with the big Euro ateliers on this list who absolutely treasure their high-profile locations ).
TheWhite Fox brand kicked off via associations with celebrities on social media and has pursued a strategy of influencer-led marketing ever since. They have a program called White Fox University where young people can become content marketers in exchange for 10 products each month. To apply to university a candidate must have 2000 followers on each of Instagram and Tiktok.
The brand is a mere 12 years old, and its founders – in their early 30s – are deep into the rich list. Daniel and Georgia Contos (nee Moore) attended high school together at St Andrews School in Sydney and started the business soon after. They were married in 2021 and now own, according to reports in the Australian Financial Review, a huge swathe of property in Sydney’s Vaucluse.
Diversifying into property is smart. Because fashion is a capricious business, and this story probably serves as a warning. The moment a brand crosses over to awareness among the economics-writer class, is almost certainly the moment it has lost its cultural cachet among the cool kids. Beware buying these hoodies for your sisters, daughters and cousins this Christmas, they may shortly be passé.
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