California Apparel News

ORLANDO, FLA.—Despite the caution that continues to linger among action-sports brands and retailers, some exhibitors and retailers turned out for the Sept. 10–12 run of Surf Expo with plans to cash in on potential growth opportunities.

The show attracted approximately 2,300 stores and 1,700 booths to the Orange County Convention Center.

Exhibitors reported a steady stream of appointments and some walk-in traffic from buyers looking to make final orders on Spring 2011 or snag last-minute Fall or Holiday 2010 goods.

Juniors continued to be a major focus among core brands.

Facing stiff competition from retailers such as Forever 21, H&M, Urban Outfitters and the like, surf and skate brands have focused on carving out their own niche in the juniors market.

“Specialty [surf and skate] shops don’t want to and can’t compete with the Forever 21s of the world on price. They have to do something different, and [core brands] have to partner with them and give them the right product,” said Toby Bost, chief executive of the Irvine, Calif.–based action-sports licensing company La Jolla Group. Juniors product coming out of the action-sports industry has to be more than trendy—and it has to be timelier, he said.

O’Neill, which saw its juniors business shrink from 40 percent of its total business to 30 percent in 2010, is taking major steps to staunch the ebb. “We’re doing a complete realignment of our juniors business. The market is super-competitive and value-based. Trends turn in 30 days,” Bost said.

Traditionally, core brands haven’t worked at fast fashion’s accelerated pace. O’Neill Girls has a new management team, a new creative team, a new name (the brand was formerly “O’Neill Juniors”) and a delivery schedule that is peppered with between-season capsules of new product. The company hopes the strategy will help retailers keep sales floors fresh and grow its juniors business to 40 percent of its total business in 2011.

“We’re attacking speed-to-market. Our strategy is to skip the sampling process [for between-season capsules] and work outside of the traditional production calendar. We had to get creative to keep up,” Bost said.

There are risks involved with the O’Neill Girls strategy. “The between-season capsules are small, but they aren’t pre-lined, so we’re taking a risk and investing in our inventory. And we have to retrain the retailer to deal with how fast trends turn,” Bost said. To start, the between-season capsules will consist mostly of knit tops. The first such delivery was shipped for Fall 2010.

Huntington Beach, Calif.–based Quiksilver also came to Surf Expo with a revamped juniors program. The brand, which debuted a new juniors brand, Quiksilver Girls, for Spring 2011, also showed its Roxy line and Quiksilver Women, a young contemporary beach lifestyle brand. Roxy, which has struggled in past seasons to strike the perfect balance between a fashion and core surf brand, showed a Spring 2011 collection steeped in the surf-and-beach culture. Recent Roxy seasons also toed the line between juniors and young contemporary, but the addition of Quiksilver Girls seems to have sharpened Roxy’s focus and grounded it firmly in the juniors market. Quiksilver Girls now fills the gap between Roxy’s tween and teen client and Quiksilver Women’s young contemporary client.

Quiksilver underscored the difference between the brands at Surf Expo. The enormous Roxy booth featured beachy lounge chairs and a crafts table where buyers could kill time before their appointments by making necklaces. Quiksilver Girls shared a smaller, more grown-up, boutique-friendly booth with Quiksilver Women.

Apparel wasn’t the only juniors target for brands and retailers at Surf Expo.

Lira, a surf/skate lifestyle brand out of Chino, Calif., debuted its first-ever line of juniors swimwear at Surf Expo. Set to launch next year, the collection targets core shops and specialty boutiques looking for swimwear with a bit of a skate edge, said Todd Kellog, the brand’s founder. Other brands, such as Insight and Tavik, have found success in the niche. Kellog hopes to gain an entrance into the market with his collection, which features sexy silhouettes and wholesale pricing of $14 to $16 per separate or $34 to $36 per one-piece.

Speedo brought Flip Turns, its fledgling juniors performance-training swim collection, to Surf Expo. The line evolved for Spring 2011 to include a sexier silhouette with a more open back and more youthful prints. Retailers responded best to the quirkier prints, said Glenn Anderson, Speedo’s director of national sales for specialty. SUP sees groundswell

In the hardgoods market, stand-up paddling (SUP), which, just a few seasons ago, was largely unrepresented on the show floor, proved to be a big push at the show, with a dedicated area and a pool so curious buyers could learn the sport and try equipment. Wake-, kite- and wind-surfing also drew interest and saw the addition of boat manufacturers exhibiting on the show floor.

This season, Body Glove jumped into the SUP market with a new partnership with San Clemente, Calif.–based board manufacturer Amanzi. Debuting for Spring 2011, the new line of Body Glove–branded SUP boards will include five different molded and epoxy board styles, ranging from racing boards to fitness boards, recreational boards that convert to kayaks and boards designed for surfing waves.

Paul Burnett, co-owner of Costa Mesa, Calif.–based Surfside Sports, said the focus on SUP, wake and “towable” water sports helps set Surf Expo apart from other action-sports trade shows, including the West Coast–based Agenda and Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo.

“There’s a broader range of [product categories] that makes it an important show for us—even if we’ve stepped away from carrying SUP,” he said. The retailer had attempted to address the burgeoning SUP market but found that it didn’t have the space or manpower to dedicate to the sport. Now, Burnett and business partner Duke Edukas cruise the SUP section to keep abreast of the sport but focus their buys in the resort, surf and skate sections, where Burnett and Edukas search for new and up-and-coming brands.

Burnett, who said an uptick in business in August after a flat June and July is helping stoke his hopes for a strong finish to the year, is cautiously optimistic for 2011.