NEW YORK — They’ve been showing up everywhere. On phone kiosks. Bus shelters. Construction sites. One image shows a long-haired man twirling a fork full of purple spaghetti. The other is a nude leaping dancer whose body is wrapped with purple bands. The only words on the poster are “Code Bleu.”
Even though there’s nary an inch of denim in the ads, Code Bleu is, in fact, a new misses’ denim line created by Sun Apparel and targeted to better department stores.
The line, which wholesales from $9.50 to $16, is going into some test stores now and being shown for this market week. It is positioned as the opening price point in the misses’ denim areas of department stores and is expected to go head-to-head with lines such as Bongo, Jordache and Rio, said Eric Rothfeld, Sun Apparel’s president and owner, who is spearheading the new venture.
After acquiring Sun Apparel in 1983, Rothfeld took the company, which had been a contractor, into private label manufacturing. In 1988, Sun acquired the license for Sasson jeans. Sasson’s wholesale volume last year was $350 million, and according to the company’s exclusive licensing agent, Stephen Wayne, Sun had “a little less than a third of that.”
But last year, Rothfeld decided that it was time for him to develop his own brand. Using Sun Apparel’s integrated production and its volume ability, the company set out to develop a brand that could do fashion denim, but also had a strong core business at a competitive price. The firm does its own finishing as well as cutting and sewing, and its El Paso, Tex., plant churns out 500,000 pairs of jeans each week.
“We see large firms that are inflexible and small firms that can’t turn out the volume,” said Michelyn Camen, vice president of marketing for the new Code Bleu venture. “We feel we can bring to the table the small-firm mentality in terms of testing and the large firm’s capability for replenishment.”
Rothfeld calls the new development “a logical evolution.”
“First we did the contracting, then we worked on the private label programs with retailers, and then, based on our success there, we decided to go into the branded business,” he said. “By the end of April, we should have the line in well over 100 doors of three or four major department store groups, with a major focus for back-to-school.”
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Rothfeld, who said he’d like to see the line do about $10 million in its first year, gave the tough task of establishing trade and consumer awareness of the line over to Camen and a Boston ad agency, Houston, Effler Hampel, Stefanides & Co.
They have appeared in trade publications and are now being placed in magazines such as the New York Times Magazine and Details, as well as on posters plastered around New York construction sites. “When you look at the marketplace, every denim ad looks alike — it’s a boy and a girl,” said Camen. “Our target market — the 18-to-29-year-olds — are very savvy. They’ve been raised on TV and magazines. So we looked for clever, irreverent, fun images. We also wanted to establish Code Bleu as an image brand…with the kind of presentation that comes from a nationally advertised brand.”
To introduce the brand to buyers, the company sent out a slew of “teasers” such as purple jellybeans and purple silk boxer shorts. Then the buyers received a David Letterman-esque “Top 10” list about Sun Apparel.
“There wasn’t one buyer that I called who didn’t know who we were,” said Rothfeld.
For the manufacturing of the line, Rothfeld emphasizes the flexibility of a vertically integrated company. For example, he said, the company wasn’t planning to start doing shorts until the fall, for the back-to-school push.
“But a lot of people have expressed a need for shorts, so we will start shipping them earlier than we planned.”
Another advantage is having tighter control over how far to invest in a particular trend.
“One of the things we see in the industry is a tendency to overreact to trends,” said Rothfeld. “Manufacturers rush to follow an idea. Then they’ve written out contracts on it so they have to create a lot of hype around it, so it won’t sit around. We can react to the trends intelligently.”
The line includes five basic five-pocket styles — a boot cut, a baggy fit, a classic fit, a slim fit and a slim ankle zip. Finishes, aside from the basic stonewashes, include overdyed black and blue, as well as groups of “washdown” colors — colored jeans that have been treated to be slightly abraded — and brushed denim, which has a slightly crisper, newer look than the washdown.
One treatment that Rothfeld feels will be key is a “demolition” wash that is more heavily abraded and results in a more worn-in look.
“It has a really authentic feel,” he said. “It finds a nice road between the sandblasted, which often doesn’t look right, and the rip-and-tear look.”
Among other pieces, a group of 11-ounce indigo Bedford cord styles includes jeans, shorts and an anorak. Crop vests in denim coordinate with the various washes in the jeans. Some jeans also combine cotton with Lycra spandex in a 98/2 blend reflecting the trend back to tighter-fitting jeans, said Claire Tassone, director of merchandising.
Short styles include a natural broken twill short short, an exposed button-fly style and suspender shorts. Another element that Rothfeld feels will contribute to the business is an EDI/Quick Response system already in place. The automatic fulfillment program, he said, can be customized for each retailer.
Now, as the Code Bleu spring-summer line is being tested, Camen is working on the marketing and advertising campaign for the back-to-school push, which she said will expand “tremendously” on the current campaign. Ads will start appearing in major fashion magazines in July, she said.
In addition, Rothfeld said, he is planning some tie-in events with retailers, and is also looking into cause-related marketing.
Rothfeld said that while TV is a natural ad medium for the brand, there are no plans to go do a spot until back-to-school 1995.
As for further growth, Rothfeld thinks jeanswear is the key business on which to build licensing deals for other categories.
“Code Bleu is considering a number of licensing deals right now, although none is official yet,” he said. Areas under consideration are “denim-friendly” categories such as knit and woven tops. Accessories and legwear will come later, said Camen, as the line evolves.