Ivy City Co is an apparel brand founded in Utah in 2015. It is headquartered in Riverton, Utah.
Ivy City Co, the Riverton dress company, recruited its third owner at bunko. Madeline Hamilton had played in a bunko group with one of the two original owners for at least a year when they took her to lunch. By the time they left the parking lot, the founders said on an eHub podcast, she was the third founder.
Whitney Smith and Natasha Thomas, friends since middle school, started the company in 2015 by reselling pieces from wholesale markets, and they told themselves they would never have employees. In 2018 the three relaunched with original dresses designed in Salt Lake City.
The matching mother and daughter dress was Thomas's idea. It went ahead over the objection of Smith, a former CPA and the group's accountant. "This is a terrible idea," she said. "The margins are gonna be terrible on this." In 2021 sizing widened to run from infants through women's plus sizes, and the company says it was the first dress brand to offer more than 20 sizes in a single design.
KarpReilly, a private equity firm, lists Ivy City among its portfolio companies. As for the no employees rule, the founders told eHub they now have 60-some.
Ivy City's first manufacturer, found by walking a boutique market in Las Vegas, let the founders order about 100 dresses of a style at a time.
