Little Beast Is Becoming the Go-to for Cool Brands Wanting to Make Dog Clothes

People may have once scoffed at the idea of the dog fashion market, but that hasn't stopped brands from clamoring for a piece of the pie. (Also, you try taking a Chihuahua on a walk when it's less than 70º Fahrenheit.)

It's a business that was largely propelled by millennials in the mid-2010s, and continues to grow with the help of Gen-Z customers: According to Allied Market Research, the pet clothing market was valued at $5.19 billion in 2021, and is expected to reach $7.66 billion by 2031. (The American Pet Products Association found that overall pet spending was up 11% in 2022, compared to the year prior.) Nowadays, you can outfit your dog in Moncler, Thom Browne and Versace, and buy their harnesses and collars off of Ssense, Nordstrom and Saks. There are even dog influencers attending human fashion weeks.

All this (plus the fact that dog clothes are simply cute) explains why designers want to dip their toes into the category. And with such ventures, the safest way to do it tends to be tapping an expert within in the space — and, lately, Little Beast has become the go-to.

Jisu Kim started the brand with leashes and collars, designed by a friend she met working in the art world in New York City, Lys Bui (now Little Beast's creative director). "I didn't know anything about business — the product cost was so high, and I didn't know you had to put margins on there," she says. "It was a big fail." So, she did what any small business founder does: She pivoted.

"I was thinking, 'Maybe we can curate a store with products from other brands,'" Kim remembers. Little Beast managed to turn a profit with this model, but she still had the itch to build something that was hers. On a trip back home to South Korea with her husband, she started thinking about dog apparel — but he thought it could never be as big in the U.S. as it already was there.

"I [thought] we could try small batches and see where it goes," Kim says. "As soon as we launched in 2020 — with onesies and sweaters — people loved our clothes."

Little Beast makes all of its apparel in South Korea, at family-owned factories that originally specialized in baby clothes. Its sizing ranges from XXS to XXL for onesies and sweatshirts, XXS to XXXL for hoodies and XXS to XL for sweaters and parkas, priced from $38 to $88. (The brand charges the same price for all sizes.) The business is primarily direct-to-consumer with some wholesale partnerships; its biggest markets are New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — "any big cities with millennials and Gen Zs," per Kim. The pieces are intentionally bold and colorful, in contrast to what she would typically find when she Googled "dog clothes": "It was either a very navy, Hamptons feel or really tech-y, like Chewy or Amazon."

This journey hasn't been without roadblocks: Little Beast launched apparel in 2020 and was unsurprisingly affected by pandemic-fueled supply chain issues ("The freight shipment took three months to get to the States — just the boat," Kim remembers); plus, there was a big learning curve not just with sizing, but with determining the best materials for this consumer.

"I was so focused on measurements, but the material is the most important," Kim says. "One, two centimeters don't make that much of a difference, but if a fabric isn’t stretchy or soft… When we first launched, we used a fleece that only stretched on one side, so [we had] a lot of sizing issues and a lot of exchanges. Even though they looked really cute, it was a nightmare. So, we developed a fleece that stretches both ways."

As far as fittings go, "I try [samples] on my dog," Kim explains. "She's a Border Collie Lab with straight hair, so she looks really bad in clothes. If it looks good on Molly, everything will look good. If you're putting it on an Italian Greyhound, it's cheating — they look good in all clothes. Every time we launch new products, I meet dogs in all different sizes and try on everything to make sure it fits 10-, 20- and 30-pound dogs."

Collaborations came early for Little Beast: Within six months of launching apparel, it worked with Wray on translating the lilac check print of its lounge set for humans onto the turtleneck "Meet the Parents" sweater for dogs.

"I reached out to Wray about making a matching dog sweater with one of its existing patterns," Kim says. "When we dropped that, we got really good feedback. I was really new to fashion, even dog fashion. I learned a lot about how patterns work, and that it can be very simple and people will still love it if it's the right color. I was like, 'Maybe I don't have to make human clothes — I can collaborate with people who are already making human clothes.'"

Since then, Little Beast has worked with Memorial Day, Lisa Says Gah and, most notably, Sandy Liang. (The latter caused quite a commotion in certain corners of the internet.) A lot of it is the result of Kim's own outreach; in the case of Lisa Says Gah, the conversation began as a pitch for the California retailer to stock Little Beast, and over time evolved into a series of matching knits for dogs and their humans.

Kim says she has no interest in producing human clothes herself, despite customers asking for it. "It's a totally different industry, and I don't want to go in there. I like my dog world. People are so nice in this bubble."

Much like Little Beast has turned to ready-to-wear brands to fill this customer desire, those very labels have begun coming to Kim to translate their vision into pet apparel.

"A lot of brands want to do something with dogs, but they're afraid. It's unknown territory," Kim says. "The benefit of having a dog clothing brand is that there's not so much competition, to be very honest. We're in the position to be able to collaborate with those brands… It's not too big of a commitment. Maybe we can try one sweater. People are more down to try something, and we make the process really easy."

The best partnerships are the ones that benefit both brands. Aside from visibility, these collaborations have helped Little Beast expand its offering and test out new categories. "We did the tote bag with Sandy, and we sold out everything — I'm going to try more dog carriers," Kim says. "We're doing a rain jacket and more functional products for summer, then a few collabs here and there. After Sandy Liang, we have a lot of cool brands reaching out to us."

Looking back on 2023, Kim acknowledges the brand has made mistakes, such as expanding into new countries too fast. "I keep reminding myself: just one big decision a year, instead of a lot of big decisions," she says. "We put our own money into this business. We never got outside investment. I still want Little Beast to feel authentic and family-owned. I don't want it to feel like a VC-funded company. I want to go really slow, step by step. What I learned through this whole process is don't be greedy — just do what you're good at."

Still, its collaborations are only getting bigger: It followed up Sandy Liang with Disney as a Nordstrom exclusive, and there's more to look forward to in 2024.

"It's more than the clothes themselves," Kim says of Little Beast. "People put it on [pets], and it makes them smile and laugh. The whole experience is what I'm selling."

Please note: Occasionally, we use affiliate links on our site. In no way does this affect our editorial decision-making.

Never miss the latest fashion industry news. Sign up for the Fashionista daily newsletter.