The 2016 Brand Era; from a founder who was building her cool-girl NYC-brand in 2016
The anti [perfect-aesthetic-ai-influencer-being-online] + pro [small-imperfect-irl-real] culture. Familiar shifts & what they mean for brands in 2026
IMO, these buzzy conversations are all intertwined, and there’s a lot we can take from them, so here we go!
By the end of the next two posts, you’ll have a good understanding of the why and what, plus how you can do something about it all this buzz as a brand, founder, or marketer.
I’m going to dive into each one of these topics across two posts, including an introduction to the brand I was building in 2016, and how we thought about marketing with our community-based blueprint.
The more I dug in, the more value it had, and I want to give you space to digest.
Part 1: Today (Feb 4)
The obsession with 2016 (my lived experience as a DTC founder + consumer)
The power of real-life human curators > the uber human influencers (our community-based marketing blueprint)
Part 2: Thursday (Feb 5)
The pivot from perfectly curated aesthetic to imperfect real-life chaos (the missing link for brands)
The Brick craze, going offline (“I want more irl connection this year” said everyone)
In case you’re new here, Hi! I’m Sax, a brand marketing and business mentor for beauty, wellness and lifestyle brands, I’m an Aussie, living in LA after almost a decade in NYC - I’m 44 and here, exploring this next chapter of life and building my business with curiosity.
This is The Super Dose, a weekly edition, where talking about brand building and marketing, sharing business insights and industry observations that sit somewhere within the beauty, wellness, and lifestyle categories.
1. The Obsession With 2016
If we look at 2016 and why people are leaning into it, it’s because it was the year before the social media hook world we live in now took over.
In 2016, in the consumer product world, brands were branding.
Especially if you lived in NYC.
There was a huge changing of the guard from big box retail, to indie newly coined “DTC” brands.
Instagram was a “social media” platform that enabled brands like my first one (that you’re going to hear about today) to grow intentionally and organically.
Ads - worked. And were welcomed.
Retail leases lapsed. Pop-ups took over.
Shopify, Squarespace, and Mailchimp were your “tech-stack”.
Things were somewhat simpler; there was less noise, in business, and in life.
In 2016, I was 4 years into my move to NYC from Australia, and in Year 2 of building my first business and brand from the ground up, and honestly, all the behaviors and shifts we’re seeing now are truly the marketing strategies we were living for back then.
Our legit 2016 brand standards - a pre-GPT brand:
We were in the company of DTC up-and-comers in the local NYC community:
AWAY - at that time, two female founders who were taking on an outdated luggage category were assigned to us as Mentors for the Mastermind we were enrolled in
Warby Parker - the OG, who at that time, had lines for their “come see our studio on LaFayette and shop the collection” invitation, which was filled with kids in glasses behind Mac screens
Outdoor Voices - at that time, shared our logo abbreviation and lifestyle :) OV, and were a small team on Canal St that we went to visit to chat collabs
Glossier - at that time, was a hole-in-the-wall temporary space with exposed brick walls, a place to come see Emily’s 3 products which were rested on top of 3 pedestals and that was it
That was the vibe in 2016.
That kind of IYKYK energy.
Collaboration was key and encouraged.
Our brand was called OVERT, we had one signature product, The Noho Bag ~ a backpack that “functioned like a North Face but with a YSL aesthetic”, here she is:
The Noho, was the ultimate bag for your life (doing it all) in the city - which looked like this for most of us:
you leave the house at 7AM, pack your bag(s) for the day, laptop, gym clothes, shoes, make-up, snacks, water, never knowing what might happen, leave your 5th floor walk up, hit the subway, and spend your day in the office, at the gym, popping out for coffee, grab lunch, going to happy hour, ending up at dinner, on a date hiding your ridiculous amount of stuff, trying to coat check it at the club, getting home at 1AM and then probably doing it all again in some shape or form.
If you live or lived in NYC, I know you’re nodding your head, and maybe you even had one?
If you’re getting messages about your brand 10 years later…it says something.
The Takeaway
OVERT was built based on these core elements:
Standout product
Clear customer
Connected community
Real people storytelling
Which is the perfect segue into the second part of this post >
The Power of Real Life Human Curators > The Uber Human Influencers
In 2016, people were fatigued of influencers in stilettos and ubers in Soho, wearing contemporary fashion brands from Intermix or Bergdorf’s.
They related more to the real girls doing real things, building cool stuff, with just enough aspiration to make it iconic.
Sounds a lot like today right? The difference is now it’s called “micro-influencers”. 😝
We wanted to bring our brand and product to life by highlighting the “real” City Girls of NYC - the ones hustling and building cool things, over the out-of-reach influencers.
Community became our second product; we hosted pop-ups, happy hours, brunches, art gallery walks.
Here are just a handful of the hundreds of awesome babes who were part of our OVERT City Girls ~ Real Girls Doing Real Shit content series.
Sarah Levey - was breaking yoga, with Y7 Yoga, which at that time was a single studio in a dark sweaty brooklyn basement, which is where we met Sarah who was our very first OVERT City Girl ❤️🔥
Cyndi Ramirez - was the lady of the house at The Garret, her cool bar in East Village, and starting the early concept of Chillhouse (the just acquired nail business (this is my favorite color polish), she’s also on Substack)
Dianna Cohen - was part of the early team at Spring, a shopping platform for indie brands that we were a part of, hosting fireside chats with business leaders in their office (now the it-girl founder of Crown Affair + Take Your Time substack)
Laura Jung - was building Uniform back then, “the perfect leather jacket’“ which I still wear to this day (I recommend her substack Digestifs)
Lively - at that time, Michelle, and Ali, two more of our brand ambassadors and collaborators, were little did we know, building a $MM empire, and hosting community hangs in warehouse lofts in Chelsea (Michelle, now building another empire and just signed Alix Earle with Gorgie, and Ali, producing podcasts like Create & Cultivate and Domino)
I wish I could list them all because they’ve all gone on to do incredible things in the world, maybe I need to do a throwback interview series!?
I will be introducing features and contributions from the founders and operators in my community here on Substack soon, so it’d make sense to include them right?
Here’s a selection of the babes wearing our Noho Bag around the world:
That period of my life and entrepreneurial career became the backbone of my marketing approach; it is the foundation of the frameworks I created and use to mentor founders inside the CFI Program and to build brands for consulting projects.
Based on all the marketing reports and news I’m reading and reporting for 2026, it’s all feeling pretty familiar.
Don’t you think?
I’m pretty happy about the 2016 era being “back” and the fact that I’m here today, building my brand, Creating Forward Studio using these same principles.
And that I get to help other founders build their brands with this same kind of energy.
I’d love to hear about what you’re building and talk about how this can work for your brand, so please feel free to book one of my Intro Strategy Sessions 😎
And if you’re in LA, I’m back in my events era and have a full Feb calendar. Join any of the upcoming hangs here or get on the First Dibs list for future invitations.
Next up, part 2: Imperfect Real-Life Chaos > Perfectly Curated Aesthetic & Offline > Online
One of the best things about Substack, is that it gives us an opportunity to have open dialogue - so let’s chat.
Have a beautiful week, Sax - X