California Apparel News

Taking a cue from Los Angeles’ fashion chameleons, Miss Me, a division of Sweet People Apparel, is reworking its offerings and launching new lines.

Since it launched in 2001, the Los Angeles– based young contemporary brand has tried to capture all of the fashion aspects that make the city so vibrant. From trendy T-shirts, beachy dresses, hoodies and sweats to denim and feminine directional pieces, Miss Me offers a little something for girls living the Southern California lifestyle. And retailers and consumers responded well. With its brand in more than 1,500 stores across the country, the company has grown tenfold over the past six years. But somewhere along the way, Miss Me’s sprawling offerings lost focus.

“By a lot of retailers, we’ve been slotted into the juniors category,” said Steve Yoo, Miss Me’s head of marketing. “We want to move away from that perception.” To reestablish its young contemporary roots, Miss Me is making big changes for Fall 2007.

“What we’re trying to do is define our line,” Yoo said. “We’ve come up with the plan to divide Miss Me into four separate lines: Miss Me, which is true young contemporary; Miss Me Jeans, for all our denim; Miss Me Collection, which is more sophisticated and elegant; and MM Unplugged, which is the opposite of that, with casual, rock ’n’ roll–influenced pieces,” Yoo explained. The four brands offer distinct styles, but all look to Los Angeles, Hollywood and the beach for inspiration. “Los Angeles girls have more than just one look, and we want to establish ourselves as offering something uniquely L.A.,” he said.

Miss Me’s new divide-and-conquer approach began with the design process. Housed in Sweet People’s expansive 63,000- square-foot headquarters and distribution center, the design team, like the brand, has split up and expanded. Now, each individual Miss Me brand boasts its own design team of five to six designers. Meanwhile, a single brand manager makes sure there isn’t overlap in design among the four brands. “It helps keep each line focused, rather than have the same designers focusing on all these different avenues,” Yoo said.

As the lines grow, Miss Me’s target audience is skewing a little older—to 22- to 25-year-old women. Wholesale price points, however, will stay the same and are consistent across each line. Miss Me, which will focus on offering trendright tops, will feature longsleeve tops for $28 to $38, jackets for $36 to $54 and short-sleeve tops for $22 to $32. Collection’s cosmopolitan offerings will vary from $18 for tanks to $40 for long-sleeve blouses to $98 for leather jackets. Miss Me Jeans’ offerings will range from $34 for basic jeans to $46 for specialdesign jeans. MM Unplugged will offer hoodies for $36 to $60, sweatpants for $30 to $44 and tanks for $22 to $30.

While the new lines’ vibe stays true to Miss Me’s eclectic Los Angeles attitude, the company is betting that each will appeal to specialty retailers who may have overlooked the brand in the past. The plan seems to be working. MetroPark, the City of Industry, Calif.–based streetwear retail chain, which never carried Miss Me in the past, has placed an order for MM Unplugged for Fall. So has upscale California-based retailer M. Fredric. “MM Unplugged makes sense for those stores, but they’d probably never carry Collection, for example,” Yoo said.

To help Miss Me’s newly divided offerings land in appropriate stores, the company has shifted its sales strategy, as well. Until Spring 2007, Miss Me had maintained an in-house sales team. Now West Coast sales will be handled by the Jackie B. showroom in The New Mart. Independent sales reps have been hired in Chicagoand New York. The brand has been in the D2 Showroomin Dallas for several seasons.

“It’s a new phase for us. We’re growing in all directions,” Yoo said.

Delving still further into young contemporary, Sweet People is gearing up to debut Sang Real, a new rock-inspired line of denim, for Fall 2007. And juniors apparel retailers won’t feel left out for long. For them, Sweet People has created Song of Love, a new juniors line that will debut for Spring 2008 featuring a similar “mix and match” aesthetic but with a lower price point.

Miss Me, internationally

As its brands deepen their young contemporary roots, Miss Me is also tackling the lofty heights of international distribution. Since signing its first international distributor in 2005, Miss Me has assembled a stable of 14 distributors in 18 countries, including Canada, Japan, Turkey, Greece, Russia, Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Brazil.

“I think everyone needs to get into international business,” said Eric Choi, Miss Me’s president. Now accounting for approximately 12 percent of Miss Me’s business, the brand is hoping to continue growing its international sales.

For the Fall season alone, Miss Me will travel to 10 European trade shows.

“European shoppers don’t want American brands that are trying to look European. They want brands that look American. I think we have an advantage because we offer something that has a uniquely Los Angeles look,” Choi said.