California Apparel News

Missing from this year’s Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo at the San Diego Convention Center were scantily clad women in unusual get-ups.

But despite the lack of leggy ladies, the show seemed to be more in tune with retailers’ needs.

Some 700 brands made an appearance inside the behemoth convention center that sits on the edge of downtown San Diego.

The three-day event, held from Sept. 5–7, got off to a slow start. Still, buyer attendance was on par with last year’s event, said Kevin Flanagan, director of the show. Some 7,000 buyers registered to attend the event that sometimes takes on all the characteristics of a frat party.

Inside the convention center, ASR’s signature entertainment was in full swing with live music and streetcourse skateboarding demos. However, exhibitors also kept buyers busy.

“There’s so much—it’s a lot to think about,” said Raymond Harold, who attended for the first time. He is opening a Los Angeles skate-and-surf boutique called Striptease later this month.

All the big guys were there: Quiksilver Inc., Billabong International Ltd., Ocean Pacific Apparel Corp. and Hurley International Inc. They noticed some changes.

“Consumers used to be driven by the fads,” said Bob Hurley, chief executive of Hurley International, based in Costa Mesa, Calif. “Now they’re looking closer at the quality of the product.”

Juniors rule

If any one area is still going strong, it’s the junior apparel segment, which continues to drive sales in the action-sports market, said Paul Naude, president of Billabong USA.

The Irvine, Calif.–based surfwear manufacturer declined to compare this year’s junior apparel sales with last year’s. But Naude said the category “continues to make a significant contribution to business.” Billabong’s junior apparel sales may soon surpass men’s apparel sales, Naude noted.

The strength of the junior market was evident at ASR, which saw a 15 percent increase in swimwear lines for girls.

Hurley International is getting ready to enter the swimwear market, according to founder Hurley.

“There’s a lot of fresh brands that emphasize the beach lifestyle, which is a big aspect of the show,” Flanagan said.

Buyers at the show scooped up triangle bikini tops with block stripes and matching sidetie bikini bottoms, lightweight boardshorts with piping and tropical prints, and novelty Tshirts with religious prints for girls.

But the strength of the junior category went beyond swimwear into sportswear, as evidenced by Ocean Pacific’s new better junior line, Seven2.

Even though some sectors of retail have been sluggish, surf and skate apparel have been pretty strong, said Tony Cherbak, a retail expert at Deloitte & Touche Consumer Group.

“Retailers are seeing a strong demand from their targeted 12-year-old to 24-year-old customer base,” Cherbak said. “It’s very consistent with what we’ve seen in sales for that sector for 2003.”

However, some segments of the market, particularly hard goods, are still feeling the crunch.

Adam Dada, co-owner of Jesse’s Trend Cellar North in Fox Lake, Ill., said sales of skateboarding merchandise are on the wane.

A recent survey by Board-Trac Inc., a research company in Trabuco Canyon, Calif., that surveys purchasing habits in the action-sports market, said about 52 percent of retailers feel sales of hard goods will remain flat over 2002.

Apparel lines multiply

With apparel sales in the action-sports industry still holding strong, many companies that sell skate accessories are launching lines of their own.

San Francisco–based IPath, a company that sells skate footwear, shipped first deliveries for its men’s apparel last June. The line, which has a bohemian extreme-skater feel, features zip-up hooded fleece shirts, knit and woven shirts, and hemp/cotton jeans that wholesale from $24 to $35.

“We’re bringing the Northern California vibe to the market,” said sales rep Travis Matsdorf. Buyers from Active, Jack’s Surfboards in Orange County and FTC in San Francisco placed several orders for the line. Zumiez, a 120-store retail chain based in Seattle, placed orders for more than 1,100 pieces. First-year projections for the apparel line are expected to exceed $2 million, Matsdorf noted.

Increasingly, buyers are looking to new labels to get a sense of the direction in the market, said ASR’s Flanagan. A handful of new collections piqued buyers’ interest, including Dekline, a hard-core line of apparel and footwear, and Momentum, a surf-inspired sportswear line for men and women.

With first deliveries slated for January, Momentum rolled out a 48- piece collection that included cotton/ twill chino pants, ring spun denim and striped stretch-poplin buttonup shirts with embroidered yokes for men and enzyme-washed ring spun denim skirts and stretch babyrib V-neck T-shirts with screen prints of Mexican religious art for women. Items from the line wholesale between $6 and $33.

Momentum’s president and cofounder, Dave Matt, said the company’s goal is to incorporate edgy, high-end looks into traditional surf apparel without alienating its young customers.

International flavor

Thanks in part to the launch of ASR Europe, organizers said there was a slight increase in international buyer registration from Europe and Asia at the San Diego event.

European retailer Vicente Modahl of X02, a three-store action-sportswear chain in England, expected the show to be bigger. But he was pleased with much of the apparel. “The main thing I like here is that there are a lot of young brands that seem to attract more interest than the bigger brands,” he observed.

Even though the economy is still shaky in Japan, buyers from the island nation checked out ASR’s offerings.

Sanae Miyauchi, a buyer for San-Ai Mix Co., which operates 80 specialty stores in Japan, was impressed with swimwear silhouettes by Lucy Love and Pink Sands. She also enjoyed ASR’s “carnival” atmosphere.

Chisa Asakura, of Tokyo’s Victory Freedom retail store, looked only for the newest styles to draw in consumers. “People are willing to pay for the new, trendy things,” she said.

The shaky U.S. and Japanese economies have impacted two of Hawaii’s titans of surf retail: Hawaiian Island Creations and Local Motion. Both have experienced a strong drop-off in tourism.

“Last year was really tough, but we’re slowly turning around,” said Donna Asuncion, buyer for Honolulu’s Hawaiian Island Creations, a global brand with several retail stores. She found the junior lines at ASR to be the most compelling.

An Agenda

While buyers milled around inside the convention center, a relatively new show called Agenda took place blocks away at a warehouse on Sept. 5–6.

Inside the loft-like exhibit space, about 70 lines were shown, including Junk Food, Live Mechanic, Minor Industries, Outdoor Terrier, Syndrome and Teenage Millionaire.

Agenda’s organizers, Luis Pulido and Aaron Levantt, created the show to serve as a side dish to ASR, where artists and designers could find an affordable space.

“Organizers at ASR are not too happy about the show,” Pulido said. “But they understand because they know the economy has been tough for a lot of their smaller exhibitors.”