That day, Oberg told me, Sporty & Rich’s clothing line sometimes felt for her like a peripheral thing. “I’m really trying to build something more than just a brand. Like, I think the product is almost secondary, and it’s really about the lifestyle around it. I think if you can build that, and it feels genuine and authentic, then you have something that you can kind of build on for years.”
What’s less clear is what exactly that lifestyle is supposed to be or represent beyond a vague celebration of opulence. Oberg herself offered somewhat competing visions in our conversations, beginning with what the brand isn’t: something to be taken literally. “Sporty & Rich is fun and, like, cheeky and silly. It’s very cheeky. It’s not, like, super literal. It’s not a serious brand,” she told me.
She went on to describe herself as someone quite the opposite of a high-flying founder-slash-influencer type. “I’m not a serious person. It’s all in good fun for me. If you knew who I was, you’d know that I don’t take anything that seriously.” However, in that same conversation, she left just as much room for a very literal reading. “I think if you’re not aspiring to anything, then what’s the point? If people want to live this sporty, rich lifestyle, and that just happens to be my lifestyle, that’s great.”
Oberg splits her time between Los Angeles, where she owns a midcentury bungalow in Hollywood, and Paris, where most of her team works—including her CEO, and ex-partner, David Obadia. From the outside, Oberg’s day-to-day looks like a well-documented stream of clay tennis courts, hotels, and terrace dinners in Mediterranean locales (though she claims she has to be reminded to post on Instagram and tells me she’d delete the app if she could).
But as a founder, Oberg is both the brand mascot and its creative force. Earlier on in the company’s history, she designed (and mood-boarded) most new garments in Illustrator. Today, she’s more like a creative director, approving work by her design team. She tries to keep things low stress for her employees in an attempt to practice wellness as a corporate culture. “I really try never to send emails to anyone on the weekend or in the evening because I feel bad. At my old jobs, I would get emails from my boss on the weekend and get this crippling anxiety.”
Nathan Taylor Pemberton
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