California Apparel News

Showroom owners and sales representatives across the Los Angeles Fashion District reported increased attendance at Los Angeles Fashion Market, which drew a mix of major retailers, chain stores, boutiques and retailers to its June 13–15 run.

The mood among buyers and exhibitors was upbeat as apparel makers showcased Fall II and Holiday collections, although most buyers were looking for closer-to-season merchandise. Many were also placing cautious buys, although some were testing new merchandise, as well.

A certain buzz permeated the halls of the California Market Center as more buyers appeared to be frequenting showrooms this year than last year.

Retailers wandered through the halls, keeping their appointments or just dropping by a showroom when they had time.

Some of the stores shopping at the CMC included Nordstrom, JCPenney, Fred Segal, Belle Gray, Planet Blue, Kitson, Macy’s, Harari, the Marshall Retail Group and TJ Maxx.

“We had a very good market,” said Kristine Cleary, whose Kristine Cleary Lifestyles showroom has been in the CMC since 1998. “One of our lines, Pure Handknit, is up 22 percent over last year.”

Pure Handknit, a Canada-based line of hand-knit cotton sweaters and wraps made by more than 3,500 women in Chang Mai, Thailand, comes in 22 colors and wholesales for $24.50 to $65. Its sister line, Neon Buddha, has knit tops and jackets that match the sweaters and wholesale for $18 to $65.

Cleary said most of her traffic was driven by appointments with buyers who were coming from all over the country, particularly the Sunbelt states that have similar climates to California.

For Fred Wells, whose Wells Intimates showroom has been in the building for several years, business was booming. “We had 24 stores in on Tuesday,” he said with a smile on his face. He was writing orders for Immediates through Spring 2012. His showroom carries a number of intimates, transitional and sleepwear lines, including Donna Karan, Honeydew, Mary Green and Arianne.

Lynn Anthony, sales representative for I.C. Collections, felt that retailers were optimistic about Fall, which was translating into a good market for her line, which is heavy on stylish jackets and separates made in Los Angeles. The average wholesale price is $59.

At the PerlmanRep Apparel Agency, whose numerous lines range from Mavi Jeans to vintage-inspired Darling, this was one of the best June markets the showroom has had in the last four or five years. “We’ve been slammed,” said Noel Smejkal, one of the showroom salespeople.

Buyers were finishing up Fall orders and even launching into Holiday goods. “Retailers are excited about Holiday,” Smejkal said.

At the Tulle showroom, which sells the Tulle line of young contemporary clothing, business was brisk. “I feel it was much busier than last June,” said showroom owner Trish Kiblinger.

Retailers attending the show were cautiously optimistic but hoping that some new styles would be coming out soon to drive traffic. “I’m wondering what accessory will be next after the scarf. It has been around forever,” said Susan Lawrence, who has three womenswear stores, under the Heart nameplate, outside of Seattle. “I think things are generally better. But it is still real value-driven. However, I think people are tired of living in that financially austere mode.” Serious buying at The New MartBusiness was strong at The New Mart, but it felt like seasons were switched around, according to Ethan Eller, the general manager of the showroom building.

“Everyone is telling me that this does not feel like a typical June market. It feels more like our Fall or Spring markets, which are generally much stronger.”

New Mart showroom owners, such as Margaret Chevedden of the Dial M showroom, said they were pleasantly surprised with the higher traffic.

“It was more than what we anticipated,” Chevedden said of the bustling flow of buyers traveling through the building. “People were leaving paper or they are taking serious notes. With some markets, you know they are just looking. This one was serious.”

Retailers reported shopping at The New Mart included Los Angeles–area boutiques Ron Herman, Ethel and Boca. There were also Santa Barbara, Calif.–based Wendy Foster; Alys Grace of Menlo Park, Calif.; Holiday & Co. of Maui, Hawaii; and The Phoenician resort in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Business also was improving at the Ginger showroom. Sales were slightly up compared with the June 2010 market, according to account executive Allison Zunich.

“Things are getting better. People are more interested in looking at new lines. They want to test new lines. We’re not showing the same looks over and over again,” Zunich said.

Retailers still need to focus on what lines are proven sellers, said Chapman Fina, owner of the Via Lago boutique, located outside of Seattle. “I’m buying smarter and tighter,” Fina said. More buyers at Cooper Like the calendars of many other United Kingdom–based brands, Ted Baker’s has earlier deadlines than those of American brands, according to Patrick Heitkam, vice president of U.S. wholesale for Ted Baker at the Cooper Design Space. For the Los Angeles market, Ted Baker was mostly offering Immediates and preparing to ramp up for its Spring 2012 sales.

“It was a steady market for us,” Heitkam said, “and we were pleasantly surprised with who came to market.”

Macy’s and Nordstrom were reported among the buyers shopping the Cooper building during the market. Cooper leasing manager Mona Sangkala described the June market as a “really positive market.”

Jackie Yi of the Cooper’s Marked Showroom said more buyers came to the market and many were interested in buying more for their stores—but not that much more.

“People are only writing core lines,” Yi said. “But they are adding new styles. If they ordered small and medium and a large last year, this year they’re ordering one small, a large and two mediums.”

With similar business, Marilyn Rodriguez of the Room showroom made a forecast of plodding growth. “It’s slowly getting back. It’s not going to be where it used to be,” she said.

Room will be moving to Cooper suite Lobby 100-A in July.

The Cooper building also hosted a free movie screening of “Bill Cunningham New York” on opening night of market. The film, which follows the legendary New York Times street fashion photographer, was shown in the building’s lobby. Guests enjoyed truffle popcorn and cocktails while lounging on couches brought in for the event.Strong start at Gerry Many of the showrooms at the Gerry Building opened a day early—on Sunday, June 12—for Los Angeles Market to accommodate buyers who prefer to shop on the weekend.

“Sunday was a great day for us,” said Emmalena Bland, co-owner of Salt & Pepper Sales.

By Wednesday, traffic tapered off a bit, but buyers were still shopping. “I can’t complain for a June market,” Bland said.

Bland and business partner Bea H. Gorman saw buyers from North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico and Massachusetts.

The showroom owners said buyers are still placing smaller, cautious orders—and many were just filling in gaps in their inventories.

But, Bland added, “At the end of the day, those relatively small orders add up.”

Salt & Pepper Sales is one of a group of showrooms that moved at the end of last year across Los Angeles Street from the CMC to the Gerry.

Gorman said her buyers are acclimating to the new location.

“We get no resistance from buyers to walking over [to the Gerry],” she said. In New York, they shop five or six buildings.” Arlene Henry was among the showroom owners who moved from the CMC. She also reported a strong start to the market at her showroom, Arlene Henry Sales.

“Monday was great,” she said. “Buyers are still cautious, but the mood is good.”

Henry and the other showroom owners on the Gerry Building’s ninth floor teamed up to offer a raffle for buyers to win a $50 gas card. The showroom owners gave away two each day for the four days of market.

Retailer Cyndi Edmunds, owner of Grand Junction, Colo.–based Zephyr, was one of the raffle winners.

This was Edmunds’ first time back at Los Angeles Market in over a year.

“I used to come only to L.A., but now I go to Las Vegas twice a year—and I’ll come to L.A. twice a year. L.A. is always easiest for me. Everything is close together; it’s not spread out like Las Vegas.” Brisk beginning at D&A Many exhibitors at the Designers & Agents show at The New Mart said they expected the decent business and steady traffic of a typical Holiday show. They did not expect the reaction of the first few hours of the show. It felt like the mall before Christmas.

“It was a madhouse,” said Ben De Luca, national sales manager for hat label Christy’s London.

There were so many people that retailers actually had to wait to get attention from exhibitors, said Gila Leibovitch, co-owner of more than four boutiques with the nameplates of Premier and Melrose Place.

“This is the first time in a year that I had to wait. There’s typically no one in the showrooms or booths,” she said.

Traffic subsided after the initial blast, but vendors remained happy with their sales. “The traffic was equivalent to a bigger seasonal show, and people were placing orders,” said Neely Shearer, a business consultant for Blondes Make Better T-Shirts, which is designed in New York and manufactured in Los Angeles.

Julien Haggiag, vice president of French diffusion line Paul & Joe Sister, said the high traffic was a harbinger for bigger sales in the future. “This market was a sign people are buying. Next market will be much busier.”

E-commerce emporium Revolve, Canadian department store Aritzia, Los Angeles boutiques Madison and Polkadots and Moonbeams, and Urban Outfitters division Free People stopped by the show.

Buyer attendance was even with the June D&A show of 2010, according to Barbara Kramer, a co-founder of the show. She said 50 booths exhibited.

However, after the pent-up demand was spent, economic reality set in. Times are still tough for many people. De Luca said his sales were even with last year.

Boutique retailer Phillippe Derey said his buying budget for his self-named Beverly Hills boutique was bigger, more than 20 percent than June market of last year. But retailing is tough. “The weather is really crazy, and when it is cold and foggy, forget it; people don’t shop. But eventually, people need to shop and buy stuff,” Derey said.

Leibovitch said the lot of the boutique retailers has not improved much since the 2008 Wall Street meltdown. It remains tough. “We either have to offer product no one else has or something priced so low you can’t say no,” she said.

But unique is in, according to Yasmine Farmanara, co-owner of the Avedon boutique in Beverly Hills.

“They don’t go to the safe, classic things as much,” she said. “How many little black dresses and black suits do people have in their closets? They’re looking for something fresh. It’s a gradual change from two years ago.” Ready to buy at SelectBuyers were roaming the aisles at Select, the contemporary trade show organized by the CMC and held in the Fashion Theater off the lobby, which, up until this year, housed ENK’s now-shuttered Brighte show.

Joy Han, the founder of the 6-year-old Voom label, was busy at Select with specialty-store buyers browsing her extensive line of dresses from her Voom label, made of silk, to her less expensive James & Joy label of solid cotton dresses and tops.

“The show has been good,” she said, noting that the entire year has been much better than last year. Her revenues have tripled during markets in Dallas and Atlanta. She was hoping the same would happen during the June show in Los Angeles.

“Now it seems buyers are ready to buy,” she observed. “So we are trying to overcut [the line] a little bit.”Kristy Lunde was happy with the number of buyers who were stopping to see the lace toppers she was selling under the Ally Rose label. She was getting lots of reorders of the accessory, designed to go over a bra and take a feminine approach to camouflaging cleavage.

People Like Frank, a Los Angeles label, has been attending the Select show since its launch earlier this year “We have found this show to be pretty good,” said Dan Brady, the company’s West Coast sales representative. “We’ve been quite busy.” Mixed reports at FocusThe handful of exhibitors at Focus, the apparel and accessories show in the CMC’s penthouse, were seeing mixed results for the event.

Gerry Kelly, who recently launched a line of patched jeans under the Sonas label, felt the show could use more attendees. “It has been quiet, but we’ve met some nice people,” he said.

The Irish native is fairly new to the fashion industry, and this was his first Focus show. People have been intrigued by his line of jeans made out of denim patches formed from 10,000 yards of denim that Kelly bought from Skyblue, a denim mill in San Francisco.

The designer and chief executive of Sonas sent the fabric to Sacramento, Calif., to be pre-shrunk and then had the denim cut into patches. They were then sewn into men’s and women’s pants as well as skirts. The line wholesales for $86 to $91.

At a booth not far away was another relatively new blue-jeans label, Zuur Jeans from Anaheim, Calif. This was the company’s second time attending the show. “On Monday, we saw a lot of buyers stopping by. But Tuesday was quiet,” said Candace Holmes, the company’s West Coast account executive.

Holmes said that the company’s second appearance at the show was better than the first. “Since buyers can see that we are back again, they are more wiling to stop and talk,” she said.

Judy and Jerry Wexler, the West Coast sales representatives for Mystree, a line of young contemporary tops, said the vast majority of buyers stopping by were placing orders for Fall. The Los Angeles label wholesales in the range of $20 to $40.Off the intersectionFor the showroom buildings located off the main Los Angeles Fashion District intersection of Ninth and Los Angeles streets, market business starts with appointments. But many showroom owners and reps reported increasing foot traffic at their buildings, which are based in the first block north of Ninth Street.

“It’s definitely appointment-driven, but foot traffic is getting better and better for this building,” said Chris Cantrell, owner of the Kascade Showroom, which has been in the Lady Liberty Building for three years.

Cantrell said he saw buyers from San Francisco, Seattle, Utah and Minnesota at market.

Down one flight at The Globe Showroom, account representative Karen Spaulding agreed.

“Every market, it gets busier and busier,” she said. “I see at least 10 new stores at market.”

Spaulding was showing a mix of Los Angeles–, San Francisco–, New York– and international-based brands, including California-based Sam & Lavi, Heartloom, Nancy Caten and Glynneth B.; Australian lines Camilla & Marc and We Are Handsome; and New York–based San & Soni, an embellished silk line recently added to the showroom.

At the 824 Building, longtime tenant T&A Showroom was exhibiting men’s and women’s collections in its two spaces. Co-owner Alfred R. Davis said market was good, but it was better for women’s lines than men’s.

“We just had a good [chain] store come in,” he said, adding he was mostly seeing boutiques, including some from as far away as Virginia and New York. “The better local stores come two or three days before market.”

Davis said he was also seeing foot traffic improve.

“We had five walk-ins today,” he said on the last day of market.

T&A’s women’s collections were sharing space with the Secret Service Showroom, owned by Robelene Montes and Melissa Green.

The two were showing a mix of women’s T-shirts, dresses, jewelry and accessories, including Los Angeles–based lines LVR, Sub_Urban Riot, Like Duh and Mustrd. The showroom also carries a few international collections, including Elena Pereil and Elizabeth Delaunay, both based in France, and O’Hara from Australia.

The Academy Awards Building is one of the newest showroom buildings in the district, and showroom owners said traffic has been steadily growing—although not necessarily during market weeks.

I’ve been here a year, and I’m thankful to be here,” said Franco Nakagawa, owner of the Magnet Showroom. “When the buyers are here, they are here to buy.”

Nakagawa said he’s been seeing more buyers for online stores—as well as an increase in retailers from Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and Canada—but between markets, rather than at market.

“Market is for locals and the Japanese—and some local e-commerce,” he said.

Magnet’s diverse mix of collections and price points—Nakagawa said wholesale prices range from $28 to $300—work for buyers looking for luxury items as well as “margin builders.”

Among Nakagawa’s collections are Los Angeles–based Rojas, Gasoline Glamour, Ventidue and Onch, the collection designed by single-named designer Onch, who dropped by the showroom during market. Onch’s jewelry features whimsical motifs such as vintage candies, cartoon-like lips and pendants that look like raw meat.

Elizabeth Hehir, owner of The Sydney showroom, which focuses on brands from Australia and New Zealand, recently added several new collections. In addition to her existing two collections, Flannel and Arabella Ramsay, Hehir added Kahlo, a newly launched collection of buttery-soft separates in warm earthy shades; Lilya, which Hehir describes as “beachy and French—imagine an Australian doing a little Parisian collection”; and Gary Bigeni, a collection of draped silk jersey dresses in bold colors. “They call him the color king,” she said.

Retailer Darren Gold was among the buyers traveling beyond the Ninth and Los Angeles street intersection. The co-owner of West Hollywood, Calif.–based men’s store Alpha dropped by the Lady Liberty Building during market, although, he said, he typically shops between markets to avoid the crowds.

Gold said he was mostly filling in his inventory, although he added, “I have one January order booked!” The retailer said he will head next to the trade shows in New York and then to Las Vegas, adding, “I’m trying to get as much as I can out of the way. I can’t get everything done in Las Vegas. It’s a good thing everyone has some presence in L.A.—either permanent showrooms or here just for market.”