NEW YORK — At Fornarina, it’s time for a little extra sand and skin.
The 57-year-old Italian company, best known for its colorful and funky footwear, will introduce swimwear and innerwear lines for spring. Sand and Skin, as the collections are called, respectively, will make their retail debuts the second week of March, with a possible runway event in Las Vegas to be timed around that month’s trade shows.
Skin lingerie is all-American with a Fornarina kick — sweet floral prints and gingham-checked ruffles and bows, as well as black-lace sets, sportier tanks and boy briefs. Wholesale prices range from $14 to $41.
Gingham also finds its way into the Sand collection, but there’s an element of Mary Ann and Ginger gone “Temptation Island.” Polkadot patterns and crochet skirts complement sleek, sexy maillots in solid hues, all wholesaling from $27 to $55. Edward B. Kangeter 4th, vice president of sales and marketing for Fornarina USA, said the collection has a “fashion perspective.”
“It’s not something you would swim laps in,” he noted. “It’s more along the lines of lounging at the beach or being at a cool pool party.”
With these new collections, Fornarina ups its lifestyle-brand quotient. The company has footwear and apparel, both of which are designed in-house, and is scouting licensees for handbags, jewelry and eyewear. The categories are the third launch for the company in the past year: Fornarina Limited, an upscale rtw and footwear collection that reinvents the company’s archives, launched in the spring, and Fornarina Vibe, a more experimental line that teams in-house designers with emerging artists, hit stores this fall.
“We’re doing it now because of the success we’re having as a multinational company,” said Kangeter, who is based in Los Angeles at the company’s American headquarters.
Fornarina will introduce the collections in its 52 international flagships, including the stores in Las Vegas and L.A. in the U.S. The lines will also wholesale in 20 accounts, such as Fred Segal in Santa Monica, Calif., True Grit in Santa Barbara, Calif., and Allston Beat in Boston. The company expects that number to double to 40 the following season.
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Kangeter declined to disclose the potential financial impact of Sand and Skin, adding that the initial launches are not designed to have a large effect on revenues for Fornarina, which has annual sales of $156 million. Rather, the name of the game — at least for now — is brand recognition and making the complete Fornarina statement. “One of the things we’re trying to do is provide an entire lifestyle of having fun with your fashion,” he added.