The Interview: ALIGNE CEO Ginny Seymour on re-founding and expanding the British design-led brand

ALIGNE is a fashion powerhouse and yet, in its current guise at least, it has only been around for 2.5 years. Its waisted blazers and waistcoats are among the most copied designs on the high street, but none of them come close to offering the same quality and fit for the price that ALIGNE does (honestly, just buy the real thing). 

It has also attracted the attention of endless influencers and high-profile women, and has broken ground with its partnerships with female athletes – most notably British footballing icon Lucy Bronze – and its advocacy for women in sports. In the past year, it has also seen huge growth in the US, which can't get enough of its minimalist and very British designs.

The woman behind those designs, and those partnerships, is in fact Canadian. When Ginny Seymour was invited to lead London-based ALIGNE, first as MD and then as CEO, she drew inspiration from the British designs she had loved growing up. She also noted that a space had opened up in the market, as contemporary brands had moved up into a higher price bracket, leaving it hard to find great quality, design-led clothing for an accessible price.

A buyer by background, Seymour used her commercial nous and her instincts for what women want to wear to transform ALIGNE in to the brand it is today. Seymour is involved in every aspect of product development and wear tests all of the clothes before they are put into production.

Latterly, she has been spending time in the US to help build the brand in that market but is now back in the UK, where her most recent project has been a high-profile campaign with global content platform Sheerluxe. The campaign underscores the brand's British identity and will raise its profile internationally.

Seymour talks to TheIndustry.fashion about her career background, her creative and strategic vision for ALIGNE, and her plans for expansion both here in the UK and globally.

Can you please tell us a bit about your career in fashion before you joined ALIGNE? 

I started my career as a buyer at Saks fifth Avenue in NYC and Holt Renfrew, Hudson Bay company and Roots in Canada. There’s a saying in the in the industry that every buyer wants to be a designer – when I got the chance to pitch my vision for what ALIGNE could be I jumped all in.  

You joined ALIGNE in 2022 first as MD and then being promoted to CEO. When you joined, you effectively re-founded the brand. Can you outline the vision you had in terms of the aesthetic  and also  the general strategy? 

I was nostalgic for the brands I bought for in the early 2000s. Somewhere along the way, contemporary brands of past elevated to premium contemporary with the rise of fast fashion, and the white space of design-led product made with quality fabrics at an accessible price point appeared. I was about to turn 40 and confident in my style and wanted modern pieces that represented the British style I grew up admiring as a Canadian – a little feminine on top with our iconic nipped waist detail paired to a relax easiness on bottom – effortless style.  

The Azelia blazer, SS26

It feels like vision has really progressed; the design handwriting is  distinct,  the marketing and distribution are much more defined. What have been the biggest challenges for you along the way and the most satisfying wins? 

The first year was a blur – you are running at pace and trying to create something new – new handwriting, new vision, new price point while respecting a first chapter existed. The brands share a name and that is something I cannot change – but they are two distinct chapters.  

Creating that separation and distinction and feeling confident that I can celebrate what the second chapter has become took time. The rebrand in October 2025 which we started on our anniversary of the restart with an amazing female lead branding team, Duzi, felt very special and meaningful - it untied ALIGNE from the past at a point when the new look and feel was defined and let ALIGNE go.  

You try every item of clothing on and do extensive wear-testing. Just how closely are you involved in the creative process as well? 

I set the creative vision – the mood board, colour and storytelling and work with an amazing design team with backgrounds from JW Anderson, Burberry, Victoria Beckham and COS to bring the vision to life.  My favourite days are sketch reviews and ranging the samples – picking my favourites, using my buying background, to merchandise considered collections. I have to love every piece and that is intrinsic to our ALIGNE ethos and makes the narrowing down clear, as we can feel when a piece is ALIGNE or not. If it is too fussy or standalone, it is not ALIGNE.  

The signature Daphne in grey knit, SS26

There are some key pieces in the collection that are so typically ALIGNE, such as the Daphne blazer and Leo waistcoat, do you instinctively know when you’ve hit on a winner? 

Yes, when the first sample comes in and there is an ease – a vision on paper, executed to a 3D product with no notes – we know it is a winner. We look at a lot of data and read all the customer service feedback and notes – we know our customer likes a waist and proportional balance while not feeling restricted. It allows her to feel confident and tackle her day as it evolves from desk to dinner. When we nail that,it is the best feeling. When Daphne arrived at our office in butter yellow it was the first time I said to myself: “I know exactly who ALIGNE is”. We have sold over 20,000 Daphne’s since.  

How often are you dropping product and when do you know when it’s time to move a product on? 

We design in eight collections a year, but generally have a couple new arrivals come each week. Although we have evolved to omnichannel with wholesale, we are still DTC first in our attitude and, as a digital brand, can drop newness really quickly.   

We are still so young we are just starting to find the ceiling on certain items. We started our US journey a year after the UK, so we have also found the UK is ready for newness more quickly, and the US is just meeting last year’s favourite for the first time. It is a new challenge we are finding ourselves in, but exciting.  

One of the great successes of the brand (for me!) is the fit and quality for a fair price. How are you achieving that? 

Thank you! The team works incredibly hard for that. We drive for customers to receive the product and feel it is amazing quality for the accessible price point.  It is a hard challenge, as costs rise for small brands, but is something we will not compromise on. Our buying and tech team work endlessly to make this happen for our customers.  

You are also very good at touching on trends so that the assortment feels  relevant, but  also staying true to the ALIGNE aesthetic. How closely do you follow trends and how important is that?  

We are trend aware but not trend led. It is hard sometimes to not get swept up in the trend and look at others, but we know who we are. Generally, when a trend lead sketch slips its way into sampling, it is the first to fall out in ranging. It doesn’t have the timelessness we associate with ALIGNE handwriting.  

Colour is a fun way we can touch on trend in a classic way, but even there we are constantly talking about what’s next; one of the reasons our Daphne blazer stood out was the butter yellow colour before butter yellow was the trend. I like to push ALIGNE with colour from the archives. There’s an emotional connection to colour. I love when we get it right.  

Lucy Bronze in ALIGNE

Your choice of brand ambassadors has also stood out. You are particularly known for associating with female athletes. Is there a particular reason for that? 

I was trying to articulate what confidence in fashion and style was when I refounded the brand. A lot of brands’ values tend to start reading the same on paper and I wanted to articulate it in our first campaign in our new era. It is so integral to how I speak about ALIGNE, our community and our ethos.  

Watching the Lionesses one day in our office, it became obvious that the way to do that was with a female athlete that represented all the values I associate with femininity.  

Lucy Bronze was my first choice and the fact that she said yes, and took a risk on a small brand, will be something that stays with me forever. It has grown into championing more athletes and more sports, and is core in our values and unifies the team.  I love how much our fashion community loves it. It was the easiest decision in the last 2.5 years and my favourite.  

Can we talk about your  distribution here in the UK first. You focused on  DTC,  but you are working with an exciting partner retailer to give a presence outside of London, can you tell us about that? 

I wanted a hot second to find our feet when the change happened. We were changing our handwriting, our price point, and target consumer and needed a moment to create a one-to-one conversation with our customer and community directly. I did not want filtered feedback; I wanted it direct.  Now that we know who we are and what our iconic products and sellers are, wholesale plays a large role in amplification and customer acquisition.   

We are very strong in London but have a lot of opportunity to grow outside of London. Picking wholesale partners that have that regional footprint was important to me. Anthrolopogie’s investment outside of London and vision for new locations across the UK with new stores in Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh excited me and felt like the right partner. We are so excited to have re-launched with them as well as Brown Thomas in Dublin to restart our wholesale business in UK/EU.  

The Ester polo sweater, SS26

What about international expansion, you have been in the US via Nordstrom and have staged an NY pop-up. How big is the brand in the US now and what is the opportunity you see there and in other international markets? 

We are now with Nordstrom, Anthropologie, Revolve, Shopbop and Tuckernuck. I wrote down my dream retailers exactly a year ago, when I decided that I wanted wholesale to be part of the US official launch strategy.  The US is physically so large that I knew we needed wholesale to meet customers and brand discovery.  The US is now a large percentage of our business and up over 150% to last year.  We have seen a nice halo impact from wholesale on DTC and do not see it slowing as, relatively, we are still so small in the scale of US.   

We jumped across the pond and focused on the US really quickly in our journey, due to organic demand and changing land space in the US, that required us to strengthen our model quickly with distribution and a different model than the UK.  I have been focused on the US a lot the last year to drive new business development and to understand our customer (they love more colour and a neater fit).   

With the groundwork laid, I am so excited to be back in the UK and focusing on expansion outside of London and Europe. We also see Australia and the Middle East as emerging organic markets and looking forward to what that brings.  

Despite the international expansion, you do seem  very keen to ensure that ALIGNE is known as a London-based brand, why is that so important? 

I grew up loving British style and feel so privileged to be building ALIGNE in London. The British high street is filled with amazing female-led brands and that differentiates the UK. It is unique and I pinch myself thinking that ALIGNE is included in that list of brands I respect and whose growth inspires me.  

London and British style is part of our handwriting. When you think of style icons like Kate Moss and Sienna Miller – there is an effortless confidence in how they style clothes. ALIGNE pieces can be quite simple, but it'sthe styling that creates the ALIGNE look. It is quintessentially British and I want to make sure that, with the US growth being so rapid, as a brand we are doubling down on our origin and roots to make sure that message is clear.  

You’ve just created a campaign with Sheerluxe, which is a  really big  deal. Tell us about it. What are you looking to achieve with it? 

We had a really great concept for our spring campaign and we're tossing around ideas on how to cast it and, like Lucy Bronze, there was a moment one Sunday in November where it all became crystal clear to me that it had to be Sheerluxe.  

I have learnt so much the last five months on our global journey. I really wanted our campaign to champion community and solidify that – although we quickly focused on the US and it might have felt we were quiet in the UK for last few months – London is our home and we wanted to celebrate London as a character in our story.  

When I first moved to London, there were so many new brands and media I was discovering – one of which being Sheerluxe. I remember picking my children up at school and the other mums talking about what they had seen in the newsletter that day and I quickly went home and followed.  I dream of the day I can pick my kids up a school and say ALIGNE and other mums have heard of it!  Sheerluxe have that power – they have the reach, the engagement and the calibre of what they produce stands out in the industry.  But, most importantly, I wanted our campaign to celebrate the community that helped us grow so quickly the last two and half years, and Sheerluxe have been supporters since day one.  I am a big believer in authentic partnership and this felt like one.  

I am so proud of it.  There are a few chapters to the story over the next month all weaving together to write a better story, with the last chapter featuring Lucy Bronze and a special sport crossover which feels like a fitting last chapter and a full circle moment to two years ago.  

A still from the Sheerluxe campaign, SS26

What about own brand stores. Is that something that’s on the horizon for ALIGNE? 

Of course, it’s in the dream but if I have learnt anything the last year it is that it is important slow down and grow into yourself before entering the next chapter. I want to enjoy what we have built and have a second to breathe.  I think we get compared to brands a lot older than us and maybe that is due to the first chapter and the name being around for five years, but we are only two and a half years into building this chapter of ALIGNE and need a moment before entering retail.  

When we are ready, I feel passionate that London deserves our first flagship. I know where, it is just when. I am a fast-paced person and not used to sitting on my hands, but I have promised myself 2026 is the year I can enjoy what we have built so quickly, grow into ourselves, and not worry about chasing the next chapter to catch up to the brands who are a decade into their journey. Everything in time.