Antik Denim to Debut Melrose Avenue Store
Flagship or chain of stores?
Paul Guez said he is mulling over this question as his company, Blue Holdings Inc., prepares to open the first Antik Denim store at 8013 Melrose Ave. by the end of July.
The 3,500-square-foot store will retail the jeans brands manufactured by Blue Holdings Inc., including Antik, Taverniti So, Yanuk, Antik Museum and Elvis. Several more Antik stores are slated to open this year in New York and Florida and perhaps in Chicago and Washington, D.C., as well.
If the stores prove popular, Guez said his company will consider rolling them out into a chain. If not, the shops will remain flagships, where retailers and the public can get the full flavor of the company’s wares. Price points will range from $200 for Antik Denim to $2,000 for Antik Museum. The back pockets of Antik Museum jeans will be embellished with precious stones and crocodile skin.
Publicly held Blue Holdings Inc. started business in September 2004 when Guez, who founded Sasson Jeans in the 1970s, struck a reverse-merger deal with Nevada-based Marine Jet Technology Corp. (Guez is also a major shareholder in the publicly traded Innovo Group Inc., which designs and markets Joe’s Jeans out of its Commerce, Calif., headquarters.)
Guez forecasted that Blue Holdings will earn from $20 million to $30 million by the close of its debut year. Blue Holding’s Antik Denim LLC subsidiary, responsible for Antik jeans but not the other brands, earned $4.4 million in net sales by the end of its first quarter, which ended March 31, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Guez has not finished plans for the interior design of the Melrose store, but he said it will have the ambiance of a Japanese garden.
Antik Denim has been popular at retailers such as Sherman Oaks, Calif.–based Belle Gray. Belle Gray manager Kathy Shawver said her boutique sells out of the jeans regularly and that her customers like the jeans’ embroidery and the way the pockets lay lower than on other denims. “I’ve never gotten resistance on the price,” she said.
Antik price points range from $200 to $300 at Belle Gray. —Andrew Asch
