Marine Layer Reviews

Awful management from people who do not know the apparel business, Very long hours with little motivation from managers, No support (asking for help is seen as a fault), 11 directors out of a company of 25., No understanding of workload (design process) or how to create a functioning design/development calendar with realistic dates. Directors are vastly underqualified for the positions they have and resent any input from more experienced staff. Anyone with experience or who is creative will quickly get frustrated and leave. Very High turnover in the design area.

I’m writing this after reading a troubling, formulaic response from Marine Layer leadership to prior employee feedback. If you’re considering working here, read through the reviews — you’ll notice consistent patterns that point to deeper issues within the company culture. Let’s start from the top. Senior leadership consistently makes inappropriate comments in meetings, at offsites, and during store visits. These behaviors are widely known across the company and have been reported to HR multiple times. Unfortunately, there has been no meaningful accountability, and the concerns raised are often met with vague reassurances that result in no change. Employees lose trust when repeated issues go unaddressed. The leadership structure feels more like a closed social circle than a professional environment. Promotions and perks often seem tied to personal relationships — being in the right group chat, joining exclusive lunches, or being part of off-hours hangouts during work travel. HQ is a frat. At team events, certain cliques separate themselves from the broader group, and the dynamic can feel exclusionary and inappropriate for a professional setting. Meanwhile, resources are being spent on elaborate parties and alcohol , even a literal MUSIC FESTIVAL (??) while employees — especially in stores — are struggling to make ends meet. Many employees here get their clothes from the damage bin and a few are on SNAP benefits aka food stamps. District and store leaders are overwhelmed. There’s far too much responsibility placed on too few people, and the burnout is real. Rather than being offered support, they’re often expected to simply take on more. Tasks continue to stack up, and HQ expectations don’t always reflect the reality of the stores’ bandwidth or control. Store Managers get especially screwed because the pay gap between Supervisor and SM is so large, yet when the SM is gone, the Supervisor is expected to run the store on literal poverty wages. Retail employees are especially impacted. For a company that promotes itself as a values-driven B Corp, the internal employee experience tells a different story. There’s a major gap between stated values and lived reality. Pay is not competitive or livable in many markets. Store teams are under constant pressure to deliver results without having any real influence over critical factors like merchandising, promotions, or marketing. Feedback from the field often goes unanswered. When questions or concerns are raised, the response is typically to refer back to roles and responsibilities or to push for better metric performance — without addressing the root issues. Touch bases are a way for upper leadership to leave cryptic notes about how much you suck at your job while offering no resources other than an excel spreadsheet with a worksheet to set a goal on it. To top it off, task completion across stores is made visible, creating an environment that feels more competitive than collaborative, and reinforcing pressure rather than support. There are many good people who work at Marine Layer, especially at the retail level, and that’s what holds things together. But the systemic issues — from leadership accountability to inequity, to burnout — run deep and won’t change unless they’re seriously acknowledged and addressed.