Thoroughly Modern Missy
Not Your Daughter’s Jeans Finds Niche in Denim Market
While most contemporary denim makers are feeling the crunch of a downturn economy, Not Your Daughter’s Jeans are finding their niche in the market. On a recent afternoon, founders Lisa Rudes-Sandel and her father, George Rudes, planned their latest marketing strategy, which they hope will catapult the modest-sized denim maker to the next level as #1 US Denim Maker. With the way their business has been going, it’s not such a far-fetched dream.
As its moniker indicates, Not Your Daughter’s Jeans (also known as NYDJ) targets women whose figures have been affected by age and gravity. The concept stuck, and now the jeans maker is one of the highest producing denim labels in the country.
“We recognized the forgotten woman, the woman over 40 who had been neglected by the entire fashion industry all over the world,” explains George Rudes, a former denim jeans executive at St. Germain Jeans, who was talked out of retirement by his daughters in 2003 to help launch their missy concept denim line. Now he’s happier than ever. “This is more fun than Florida,” Rudes says. “It’s better than hitting golf balls.”
At the moment, the denim duo is ecstatic about the latest analysis on the denim market by Port Washington, N.Y.–based NPD Group, a retail research firm that recently ranked NYDJ second, just behind Seven for All Mankind, among denim manufacturers in total dollar volume for April 2008—a 75 percent increase in same-month sales from one year earlier. For the 12-month period from April 2007 to April 2008, NYDJ posted a 25.8 percent increase in sales, achieving an impressive fourth place in total dollar volume behind Seven For All Mankind, Citizens of Humanity, and Levi’s.
“Today we are seeing a whole new market finally being addressed. Moms are finding that some jean brands are addressing their needs,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for The NPD Group. “Today, women of size, age and dimension are able to chase their dream of finding the perfect pair, and there is little sign of it slowing down.”
Unlike most of the top contemporary denim names, NYDJ doesn’t target slim-hipped, flat-stomached, bone-thin tweens, teens and twenty-something’s. Instead, it targets their child-bearing, pair-shaped mothers, who, like their daughters, enjoy a slim-fitting pair of jeans when they can find them, which isn’t often.
Using its patented Tummy Tuck technology of criss-coss front-panel design, NYDJ jeans strive to slim the lower abdomen, shape the hips, and lift the often-problematic bottom, all in complete comfort, and all in denim. The internal supports are so effective, the company claims, that women should go for a size smaller than their usual size.
That forgotten woman was Rudes-Sandel herself, who, with sister Leslie, who serves as vice president, came up with the concept after constant frustration on the jeans front. Despite her workout ethic, “I’ve never had a flat tummy,” she admits. “And I didn’t want to show my underwear every time I bent over.” What Rudes-Sandel wanted was a pair of jeans specifically designed not for a girl, or a girl wanna-be, but a woman, without that pair of jeans looking like they could fit the local plumber. The NYDJ mantra would be fit, not necessarily fashion-of-the-minute. Tummy Tuck provided the answer.
“We struck that nerve,” Rudes says. “A comfortable misses customer is one who will return again and again, and doesn’t have to have the money to fill her closet.”
NYDJ produces misses, petite and large-size collections that offer more than 350 styles. The line retails for $88 for basic styles and $138 for embellished denim styles. While their focus is on fit, the denim maker doesn’t shy away from the trends. “[Our customer is] just a bit missier”—which means that fashion elements, such as colors, treatments and textures are kept on the calmer side,” says Rudes-Sandel.
High end retailer Nordstrom saw potential in the brand and tried it on for size. Currently, the line is the retailer’s number-one online seller. “Not Your Daughter’s Jeans is filling a niche with an innovative product that nobody else currently offers,” says Nancy Christensen, Corporate Merchandise Manager of Studio 121, Narrative, Petites and Coats & Dresses at Nordstrom, Inc. “[NYDJ] continues to evolve and provide new compelling styles, helping to build their customer loyalty while also earning new customers.”
The denim maker’s partnership with Nordstrom goes beyond profit. NYDJ sponsors a month-long fundraiser at the retailer each October. For every pair of Tummy Tuck jeans tried on for size, NYDJ donates $1 to Susan G. Komen For the Cure copy; . Approximately $27,000 was raised last year. This year, NYDJ has committed to do the same for a solid year, beginning last May, with a cap of $500,000.
Beginning this year, Rudes-Sandel says NYDJ will test new fabrics and tap into new categories in an effort to reach a wide-ranging customer. NYDJ plans to roll out maternity and post-partum lines late this year, Rudes-Sandel says, and their focus remains on “making a woman look and feel younger and slimmer.”
For Fall 2008, NYDJ is launching a line of Tummy Tuck slacks—a trouser look in solids and twill, tweedy weaving, pinstripes, very beautiful with a sweater or blouse. Each style will feature the brand’s signature Tummy Tuck construction. “These are meant to be practical foundation pieces,” Rudes-Sandel, “Just a nice, clean, very well-made trouser pant with quality and comfort and styling, nothing weird.”
While the denim is domestically produced, the slacks line comes from offshore, in fabrications including dry clean–preferred rayons and poly-rayons. The trousers will retail for just under $100. Retail interest for the line is strong, according to Rudes-Sandel.
NYDJ has found ways to put its denim to work: 10,000 pairs of jeans were recently shipped to Iowa flood victims through a nonprofit group called Crowded Closet, and 20,000 pairs to the Union Rescue mission.
With sales volume approaching $100 million annually, some two million pairs of jeans shipped to 20 countries, and the whole new frontier of trousers opening up this coming year, Rudes says, “This has been a fabulous ride.”
