Children's clothing retailer Carter's is rebranding to appeal to a new generation of parents

Children's clothing brand Carter's is undergoing a revamp to better align with the new generation of parents as its namesake company tries to recover from sluggish performance in recent years.

The rebrand, announced Tuesday, includes a new logo and marketing campaign that Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Crockett told CNBC aims to keep the 161-year-old company relevant with its core customer.

"We recognize that the market difference of our parents in the communities that we're serving is significant," Crockett said. "We had an opportunity to really tap into the values that parents are bringing into the household."

Carter's largest brands include its namesake banner and OshKosh B'gosh, which are sold in standalone stores around the U.S. and in retailers including Walmart, Target and Amazon. The rebrand comes as the overall company has shrunk its store footprint and laid off some employees over the past year to try to reposition itself for growth, especially as the market for baby and kids clothing has grown more competitive.

Wall Street has taken note of the company's issues. Over the past three years, Carter's stock has plunged more than 50%, bringing its market cap to around $1 billion.

For the full 2025 fiscal year, Carter's reported adjusted net income of $126.1 million, down sharply from $210.7 million the year before. Last year, then-CEO Douglas Palladini said elevated product costs, higher tariffs and additional investments "weighed meaningfully" on the company's profitability.

Last October, Palladini said Carter's was eliminating 15% of its corporate workforce and shuttering 150 North American stores as leases expired in an effort to "rightsize" the company.

Since then, Carter's has started to show more bright spots. And the rebrand aims in part to capitalize on the momentum.

In the first quarter of 2026, the company reported a 10.5% increase in U.S. comparable sales and an 8.1% jump in net sales. Shortly before it reported those results in May, Carter's announced it was hiring Sharon Price John, formerly the CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, to lead the company as it tried to regain strength.

In June, Wells Fargo analysts upgraded Carter's from underweight to hold, saying that while the retailer's performance "isn't perfect," the changes the company was instituting were "driving fundamental improvements."

Price John told CNBC the struggles Carter's went through before she joined the company were par for the course and a "natural evolution."

"Like any company at our scale, you're going to have a pretty standard process of evolving your retail footprint, and in many ways that's just exactly what the company's doing, which is the right thing to do," she said.