Megan Brooks, center, founded Astral, LLC, to provide branded apparel to wholesalers and businesses on demand. The company recently won the Entrepreneur Award from Commerce Lexington’s Salute to Small Business.
Lexington-based Astral, LLC, sells branded athleisure apparel to wholesale customers in the fitness industry. With a twist, of sorts. Instead of the traditional business model that has fitness studio owners placing orders months in advance and carrying inventory, Astral provides on-demand products.
Megan Brooks
Astral is a wholesale distributor, retail consultant and third-party logistics provider. Located in downtown Lexington, founder and CEO Megan Brooks and her team handle photography and graphic design of the apparel, buying and merchandising, e-commerce distribution and site management, and third-party logistical services to manage the receiving, processing and distribution of products on behalf of corporate clients, product manufacturers and e-commerce sites. “I would put our team against any in the industry,” Brooks said.
Local clients include Sterling Hot Yoga and The Lex Method. Nationally, Astral works with CorePower Yoga, Cyclebar, Pure Barre, Row-House and Xponential Fitness, among others.
“We are proud to work in partnership with the top names in the industry as well as the independent studio owner who is opening a single studio in their hometown,” Brooks said.
One of the fastest growing services for Astral is private-label product design and manufacturing. “Our broad customer base gives us buying power to source custom cut-and-sew blanks,” Brooks said. “In-house graphic design provides access to premium artwork, and our network of printers delivers cost and production timeline advantages.” The company can offer competitive shipping rates thanks to being an hour from UPS Worldport in Louisville and 400 miles from FedEx Express World Hub in Memphis.
A native Lexingtonian with a degree in business marketing from the University of Kentucky, Brooks earned an MBA in 2009 from Thomas More University in northern Kentucky while also working for Newell Brands. She started her own consultancy, Brooks Enterprises, in January 2015. That fall, an impromptu conversation with the owner of a boutique fitness studio in town led to the onset of Astral, LLC.
“It struck me that there had to be a better way for studio owners to manage retail, and I wanted to try my hand at applying data to the process,” Brooks said. Three months later, she had 11 studios in three states inquiring about the service “and I knew I was on to something.”
Brooks hired the first full-time Astral employee in 2016; now there are 25 employees plus extra part-time help during peak seasons. “The most important thing is to sur-round yourself with people you trust and who are better than you at what they do,” she said. “The list of people working at Astral that are better than I am is long and growing — and that’s how I like it.”
CFO Jeff Chochinov has a master’s in marketing from Harvard. “His guidance on our branding, financial and go-to-market strategy is best in class,” Brooks said. Before managing Astral’s third-party logistics operations, Beth Ann Sebastian spent a decade in international customer service. Jamie Florence, director of sales, came from Lululemon. Allison Herrington is the director of buying and merchandising. “Because of her talents, we now manage buying for the largest fitness organizations in the country,” Brooks said.
“We would not be where we are without these individuals and the teams they lead. They are all better at what they do for the business than I could be.”
“The talent pool in Lexington is phenomenal and has been a major competitive advantage for us."
Brooks owns 40 percent of the company; board members Brian Brooks and Jeff Chochinov own the other 60 percent. In August, Astral won the Entrepreneur Award at Commerce Lexington’s Salute to Small Business awards luncheon.
“The talent pool in Lexington is phenomenal and has been a major competitive advantage for us,” Brooks said. “We have also been able to work with other local business owners to support the local economy and fuel our growth. We have partnered with real estate providers, contractors, photographers, interior designers, schools and the Chamber of Commerce to make our business better.”