DENIM DISH
Wal-Mart Buys Sasson Jeans Brand
Wal-Mart said Wednesday it purchased the mass-market Sasson brand of women’s apparel and accessories and plans to begin distributing it globally starting in spring 2001. Terms were not disclosed.
In a statement, Bob Connolly, executive vice president of merchandise and sales for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., described Sasson as a “modern-lifestyle brand” that would help the retailer “further our positive momentum with the fashion conscious consumer.”
Wal-Mart executives could not be reached for further comment.
However, the giant retailer recently indicated it would soon introduce a brand or label in light of what’s happening with the Kathie Lee Collection. Wal-Mart’s exclusive contract with Kathie Lee Gifford expires at the end of 2000, though the chain will probably continue to sell some of the merchandise, at least for a while.
In its quest for brands, Wal-Mart three months ago purchased the jeans brand Faded Glory from a private consortium controlled by the Dayan family. It is already Wal-Mart’s biggest in-house apparel brand and is seen representing at least $1 billion in sales this year, according to industry estimates.
Executives at Sasson Licensing Corp., which has had more than 40 product categories licensed, could not be reached for comment.
A Gaultier Moment
With minimalism maxing out, fashion seems to be coming back around to the decorated, edgy, ethnic-inspired style of French designer Jean Paul Gaultier. Which is enthralling for the folks at David Glazer Inc. here, the sales agency that recently took on U.S. and Canadian distribution of the revamped JPG and JPG Jeans lines.
“It’s filling a void,” said Melissa Mars, national sales director for JPG and other lines. “Everything had gotten so clean and streamlined and industrial, and this is the antidote.”
Antidote indeed. Even the few basic jeans styles boast fashion details like tab waists, frayed hems and attachable utility aprons. And then there are the fashion items: dresses in papery fabrics that collapse into tiny hip pouches, raw denim skirts with flimsy lingerie tops attached, and low-slung printed jeans with a belt that zips off for those who want their jeans even lower.
The Gaultier jeans are now being produced by sportswear manufacturer Sportswear International, based in Carre, Italy, which also makes jeanswear under license for Moschino, Strenesse, Krizia, Katherine Hamnett and Roberto Cavalli.
The collection arrived late last week and Mars began showing it to retailers Monday. At present, the brand is carried by about 20 domestic accounts, including Neiman Marcus. Mars said the plan is to slowly and selectively increase distribution to about 50 accounts.
Wholesale prices range from $68 to $80 for jeans. Specialty pieces go higher, such as $196 for a knee-length denim skirt in a distressed denim decorated with paillettes. Denim, almost all of it 12-ounce, represents about 30 percent of the collection. These pieces carry the JPG Jeans label, while nondenim styles are simply labeled JPG.
Mars said the relaunch will likely be supported with brand advertising. As reported, Hermes recently acquired a 35 percent stake in the house of Gaultier by providing a cash injection of some $23 million.
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Bella Dahl’s Embellishment
One day this spring, several things went missing in the Lubell household in Manhattan Beach, Calif. Jeffrey Lubell, a fabric salesman, could not find his favorite Levi’s jeans and several of his fabric samples.
They were in the hands of his wife, Kym, a 10-year fashion industry veteran, and her friend, Caryn Katz, a poet with a background in fashion advertising. The pair customized the jeans by cropping them above the ankle and attaching scraps of fabrics to the hem and waistband. “I started wearing them and people were flipping out,” Kym Lubell recalled. “That’s when I called Fred Segal.”
Lubell and Katz whipped up 13 more pairs and took them to the Segal store. They sold in a day.
Four months later, Bella Dahl said, the company has shipped $1 million worth of its one-of-a-kind embellished jeans to some 200 specialty stores in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The recycled Levi’s are decorated with fabrics, including sari and kimono textiles and suede and velvet materials from all over the world. At present, monthly production is hovering around 10,000 pairs.
“They’ve been flying out the door,” said Stacey Kaye, merchandise manger at Henri Bendel, where Bella Dahl jeans retail for $158. “The good thing about them is they’re not just for teenyboppers. She makes them up to size 33 or 34.”
Kaye said the jeans are selling briskly because they’re novel and each pair is one of a kind. “The ones I wear have Chinese and Hawaiian prints on the bottoms,” she said. “I wear my Bella Dahls all the time.”
Jackie Brander, owner of Fred Segal Fun, a casual sportswear department at Fred Segal, Santa Monica, Calif., said she’s already sold some 1,500 pairs at $136 to $150 retail. “I have to quadruple my orders to keep up with my demand,” she said, noting that some women buy up to three pairs of jeans.
Asked to account for their appeal, Brander said, “Women love Levi’s and it’s just a little bit of a fancier version of it,” Brander said. “It’s almost like wearing accessories on your Levi’s.”
To keep the business humming, Lubell said she and Katz have expanded the collection to almost 20 styles, including jeans jackets, corduroy jeans, overalls, T-shirts and children’s styles.
XOXO Blue
For the first time, junior sportswear firm XOXO is spotlighting jeans as an integral part of its fall advertising effort. The images, in black and white with a bronzed overtone, are slated to break in September magazines, including InStyle and Mademoiselle.
The images, created by XOXO’s ad agency, Laspata/Decaro, will also decorate some 250 new in-store shops that are being installed in Federated Department Stores and May Department Stores Co. doors, adjacent to XOXO sportswear shops.
The shops range in size from 200 to 500 square feet and reflect the rapid development of the XOXO in-house jeanswear business, said Chrissel Battaglia, head of the denim division. And they neighbor the sportswear for an important reason: the junior customer mixes denim into her wardrobe. “She wants to wear a jeans jacket over the tube-top dress she’s wearing,” she said.
However, core basics will also be part of the business. Battaglia said XOXO will soon be equipped for automatic replenishment. Six styles in three different washes will be warehoused in Los Angeles.
Girbaud Shops
The first of 23 planned in-store shops for Marithe & Francois Girbaud jeans bowed this week at Macy’s Herald Square here. The 450-square-foot shop features the men’s collection. A 1,100-square-foot shop for the women’s collection is scheduled to open by the end of the month.
Bloomingdale’s, Carson Pirie Scott, Dayton’s, Hudson’s and additional Macy’s locations are also slated to get in-store shops, according to I.C. Isaacs & Co., the U.S. licensee for Girbaud jeanswear.
The shops feature customized cherry and aluminum fixtures and large-scale transparency images from the current ad campaign, whose theme is “denim alphabet.”