Sean John is a privately held fashion lifestyle company created by music mogul Sean John "Diddy" Combs. The line made its fashion debut with a men's sportswear collection for the spring 1998 season. In 2016, the brand had annual retail sales of $450 million.

History

In 1998 Sean Combs launched a signature collection of sportswear under his given name, Sean John. The brand made its debut at retail during a launch event at

Bloomingdale's Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain founded in 1861 by Joseph Bloomingdale and Lyman Bloomingdale. It was acquired by Federated Department Stores in 1930, which purchased the Macy's department store chain in 1994, ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Since its launch, Sean John has enjoyed critical and commercial success with revenues now exceeding $525 million annually. Sean John has often appeared at the award ceremony for the CFDA Fashion Awards held annually in New York. For five consecutive years, from 2000 to 2005, Sean John was nominated for its excellence in design. In 2004, Sean John was awarded the CFDA Men's Designer of the Year award. In February 2001, Sean John produced the first nationally televised runway show during

New York Fashion Week New York Fashion Week (NYFW), held in February and September of each year, is a semi-annual series of events in Manhattan typically spanning seven to nine days when international Fashion design, fashion collections are shown to buyers, the pres ...

when it simultaneously aired live on E! Television and the

Style Network Esquire Network was an American pay television network that was a 50/50 joint venture between NBCUniversal and the Hearst Corporation. Launched on October 1, 1998 as Style Network, a spin-off of E!, the channel initially consisted of fashion, ...

. During fashion week in February 2002, the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

ran a front page story on Sean John. In 2004, Sean John invested in the high-end label

Zac Posen Zachary E. Posen (; born October 24, 1980) is an American fashion designer. Early life Zachary E. Posen was born and raised in a American Jews, Jewish family in New York City, residing in the SoHo neighborhood of lower Manhattan. He is the son ...

. In October 2008, the company purchased streetwear lifestyle brand Enyce from

Liz Claiborne Anne Elisabeth Jane Claiborne (March 31, 1929 – June 26, 2007) was an American fashion designer and businesswoman. Her success was built upon stylish yet affordable apparel for career women featuring colorfully tailored separates that cou ...

for $20 million. Combs' FIFI Award-winning

perfume Perfume (, ) is a mixture of fragrance, fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), Fixative (perfumery), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agre ...

, Unforgivable, was joined by Sean John fragrance I AM KING in November 2008. In May 2010, Sean John made a distribution agreement with

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

department store in which Macy's and Macys.com would be the sole distributor of Sean John sportswear at the retail and online level. As part of this agreement, Sean John and Macy's expanded the Sean John brand's distribution to many more Macy's stores and entered into exclusive marketing partnerships with the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

. In November 2023, it was announced that Macy's was pulling all Sean John clothing from their department and online stores, due to Combs' sexual assault allegations, effectively ending their partnership with Combs. After having previously sold a 90% stake in Sean John to Global Brands Group in 2016, in December 2021, Sean Combs purchased Sean John back from Global Brands Group for $7.5 million, following the company's bankruptcy.

References

External links

{{coord missing, New York (state) Clothing companies of the United States Clothing companies established in 1998

Sean John Sean John is a privately held fashion lifestyle company created by music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, Sean John "Diddy" Combs. The line made its fashion debut with a men's sportswear collection for the spring 1998 season. In 2016, the brand had ann ...

Shops in New York City Hip-hop fashion Eyewear brands of the United States