New Look May Give Jeans Brand New Life
Fashion brand FRx Future Prescription needed a doctor.
In 2003, the New York–based company had been warmly received by some retailers as a denim brand that offered a wonderful fit for women age 30 and up. By 2005, its potential seemed to be spent. Consumers started complaining that the once spectacular fit was absent from the brand’s 2005 season. Subsequently sales dropped, according to retailers. However, the future now looks bright again for the label.
FRx Future Prescription will be reintroduced at the Project Global Trade Show by Los Angeles–based Eduardo Kuri, a 29-year-old scion of the family that founded Mexican manufacturers and retailers Baby Mink and Apolo Textil. Kuri’s company IKA Group purchased the brand in February 2006 for an undisclosed amount.
He hopes that a new look, created by his designer, Karla Paredes, will be exactly what the doctor ordered for the brand.
“We don’t want to compete with a lot of the premium labels or distressed jeans,” Kuri said. “[Our demographic] wants something classic to wear to the office or perhaps picking up her kids at school.”
Future Prescription’s new look will be constructed out of Japanese and French denim. With a nod to premium denim’s knack for details, the inside of the denim pant bears the brand logos. Other details include denim piping. The line will feature a similar high-rise waist and fit offered by the original line.
Kuri believes that another advantage for his line is the quick production turnaround that his company offers. The jeans are assembled at his family’s factories in Puebla, Mexico. Then they are shipped back to Los Angeles to be finished at Southern California wash houses. The process takes 10 days, Kuri estimated.
The line that Kuri will debut at Project in Las Vegas later this month will feature more than 10 pieces, which will include pants (with wholesale price points of $65 to $85) and jackets (with wholesale price points of $85 to $95).
Kuri forecast that the line would earn $1 million in the remainder of 2006 and make $8 million in 2007. The young executive hopes that FRx will be one of the first successful forays into building a brand for his company, which has been manufacturing private-label clothes for most of its 11 years.
The new brand has high standards to live up to, said Shauna Stein, who sold FRx at her Los Angeles–based designer boutique On Sunset.
“They had a perfect rise,” she said of the original brand. “They had the perfect stretch fabric. Their washes were progressive. I never knew why they didn’t get bigger.”
For more information, visit www.frxclothing.com. —Andrew Asch
