LOS ANGELES — The Ella Moss woman is getting her own store.
The VF Corp.-owned brand has initiated retail in the backyard of its target customers — prototypically beach-loving twentysomethings with a knack for leading fashion trends and often sporting Ella Moss clothes to the office and to unwind afterward during post-work cocktails — at the Fashion Island shopping center in the affluent seaside city Newport Beach. Opened Friday, the store is the first of what’s expected to be a dozen over the next five years, according to Jonathan Saven, president of Ella Moss and Splendid.
“The brand has been around for 10 years, and it has been growing for 10 years. We felt like our entrance into retail as a business was a natural move,” said Saven, who added that the retail path paved by Splendid — the brand that VF acquired with Ella Moss that’s directed at a slightly older, more casual customer — gave him confidence that retail would work for Ella Moss. “We knew nothing about retail going into that, and we have six stores right now, and we will have eight Splendid stores by the end of October. We have learned what it means to be retailers, and we will start leveraging some of those skill sets. There is excitement about being able to showcase things the way you want to,” said Saven.
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For Ella Moss, showcasing merchandise the way the brand wants to means further developing its reputation outside of striped shirts and easy-fitting dresses. Ella Moss’ classic tops and dresses constitute at least 65 percent of the business, but Saven asserted other items have been picking up speed, such as sweaters, currently around 20 percent of sales, and fake fur jackets and vests, which are responsible for 10 to 15 percent.
“It is definitely becoming more balanced and not just a T-shirt line,” he said. Ella Moss and Splendid are launching footwear next year under license with New York Transit Inc. After that, Pamella Protzel Scott, co-creator and creative director of Ella Moss, indicated the brand’s product portfolio would continue to grow to fill stores and the wholesale pipeline, and she envisions home and handbags among the merchandise categories it would entertain. Already, Ella Moss has extended into Ella Moss Girl and Little Ella for tweens and younger girls priced mostly at $42 to $79, and $32 to $79, respectively. Ella Moss’ women’s wear is from $73 to $298, and swimsuits, produced under license by Raj Manufacturing, average $100 to $135.
Retail will give Ella Moss a vehicle to experiment, said Protzel Scott. “We are going to be doing more outerwear pieces, woven pieces and bottoms,” she predicted. “I am really excited to have our loyal customers be able to come in and see this being a platform for the full brand. I think everybody is going to be really excited to see the assortment we offer.”
Protzel Scott’s globe-trotting lifestyle inspired the Fashion Island store. As she travels, the designer explained, she accumulates “this collection of different treasures along the way.” The bright store awash in whites, creams and beiges is an amalgamation of those sorts of found treasures, which she described as not pegged to any specific era, but “a little bit midcentury, a little bit of Art Nouveau, a little bit of Boho.” “I wanted something that was very eclectic,” she emphasized about the store design.
Design elements that exemplify Protzel Scott’s approach include a hand-made cast iron storefront with an antique brass finish, a partition wall in the style of Art Nouveau architect Victor Horta’s Maison & Atelier Horta building, and wall coverings in the dressing rooms by British wallpaper designer Karen Beauchamp in collaboration with Swarovski. Ella Moss’ branding initiative Butterfly Girl, which is based on the concept of a free-spirited new Bohemian woman, is also woven into the store with a butterfly stained glass window and a gold butterfly inlaid into the stone floor at the entrance.
Saven said that Ella Moss is not yet scouring real estate for additional stores, although outdoor lifestyle centers on the West Coast are strong contenders for future locations. He anticipated the footprint of future units to remain around 1,400 square feet, the size of the Fashion Island location. Saven noted the footprint is intended to make Ella Moss feel like a boutique and not a “mass store.” Splendid stores are a tad bigger, running from 1,800 to 2,500 square feet.
While he wouldn’t discuss revenues, Saven said the stores wouldn’t represent a large portion of Ella Moss’ sales in the near term. Ella Moss is found in more than 2,000 wholesale accounts, including Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Barneys New York. Splendid’s retail operations account for around 10 percent of total sales. Splendid, the larger of the two brands, is expected to expand by eight to 10 stores a year.
“The stores have always been profitable,” said Saven.
Ella Moss and Splendid combined to generate $98 million in annual revenues when VF Corp. completed its takeover of the brands from Mo Industries in 2009. At the time, VF said the brands would contribute $70 million to 2009 revenues and, last fiscal year, the company disclosed in its annual financial filing that they registered an incremental $24 million in revenues. The company also predicted they would grow 10 to 15 percent annually and said in the filing, the “brands have primarily performed as planned since their acquisition,” and stated that the “rollout of owned stores is a significant component in the growth model for these brands.”