Photo: Veronica Beard Save Story Save this story Save Story Save this story If you’re a woman in the US, chances are you’ve had an item from Veronica Beard in your closet, at one time or another. Perhaps you got one of the brand’s famous Dickey blazers for your first job. Maybe you wore a dress to graduation, or reach for a pair of Veronica Beard loafers on the daily.
Sixteen years into founding their eponymous brand — the founder sister-in-laws, Veronica Miele Beard and Veronica Swanson Beard, share a first and last name — have established themselves as a mainstay in American fashion. Veronica Beard has 52 stores in total (46 across the US and six globally). It’s evolved from offering a single product — the signature Dickey jacket, which comes with removable underlayers — to a full wardrobe, from work attire and eveningwear to shoes and belts. The duo has weathered New York fashion’s ups and downs for nearly two decades, and were finalists in the 2013 CFDA/ Vogue Fashion Fund (CVFF).
But Veronica Beard didn’t hit $400 million in revenue by billing itself as a capital-F fashion brand. Instead, the Beards have built a brand that caters to the everyday American woman who wants to look and feel good. “Fashion has always catered to the two [US] coasts. But there’s a huge country in the middle where there are women who have cool things going on, amazing jobs, are badasses, who need to get dressed and they need clothes,” Swanson Beard says. It’s a profitable business, and one that has enabled the brand to remain founder-owned for over a decade.
As the label has grown, so has its base. The founders now think of themselves as catering to three generations — all of whom, they say, are busy and have places to be. (The brand’s biggest demographic is women aged 35 to 50.) Veronica Beard wants to give its shoppers the easiest route to styling, dressing and shopping. “We always say we want her to be in and out and doing what she loves to do,” Swanson Beard says. “Some women love shopping and love fashion — and some women really can’t stand it. You’ve got to serve both.”
It’s the women who aren’t obsessed with fashion who keep coming back, because they look to the brand for direction, she adds. This wardrobing logic is where Veronica Beard’s price-value proposition factors in. Blazers sit around the $700 to $800 mark. Most jeans are under $400. Sweaters are in the mid-hundreds. It’s not cheap, but it’s cheaper than a lot of contemporary alternatives.
Over the past 10 years, Veronica Beard saw a period of significant growth, with a quick succession of store openings, product category launches and expansions. In 2025, the brand opened eight new stores (Seattle, Somerset, Short Hills, Philly, Aspen, Plaza Del Lago, Palo Alto and Montecito); in 2026, another five (Raleigh, Jackson Hole, Paris, Princeton and Kansas City). Now, Miele Beard says, the pair have been playing catch-up — and are keen to slow down a little.
“We opened a lot of stores and now we have to catch up with what we’ve done. We’re traveling to all these places and reinvigorating the product and really taking a look at our brand message and these different categories — we don’t want to get too dumbed down with too many things and not do it well,” she explains.
The founders are not keen to propel growth too quickly — they don’t have a private equity firm to answer to (they have outside investment from minority investors including Andrew Rosen and Lew Frankfort) — but they are eager t…