NEW YORK — Apple Bottoms is widely known for the shapely fit of its jeans, but the company now aims to be known for a host of other products, too.
In the past six months, the brand, launched in 2002 by Cornelius Haynes Jr., better known as Nelly, the hip-hop artist who hails from St. Louis, has signed licensing deals to produce jewelry, handbags, footwear and accessories such as iPod and BlackBerry cases. The company is discussing plans to launch swimwear, lingerie and a fragrance. The deals were brokered through Check Group LLC, a licensing company based here.
“We’re an empire now,” said Shauna Miller, licensing director for Apple Bottoms.
Ian Kelly, chief operating officer, said he predicts the wholesale volume of the brand to reach upward of $100 million in the next year. Apple Bottoms plans to roll out in Canada and Europe within the next few months.
“The Apple Bottoms woman has grown up and we’ve grown with her,” said chief executive officer Yomi Martin, who’s also Nelly’s cousin. “We’re trying to be a brand for all women.” As part of their mission, Martin said he’s considering entering the couture market. “We’ll do something like that famous J.Lo dress,” he said, referencing the memorable green Versace dress Jennifer Lopez wore to the Grammy Awards in 2000.
According to Martin, the entrance into numerous categories elevates the brand from the urban category, a classification he thinks is on the verge of becoming obsolete in today’s fashion vernacular.
“Fashion is fashion. Breaking it into segments and calling something ‘urban’ puts a glass ceiling on what you can do,” Martin said at the Apple Bottoms showroom on the 15th floor at 1385 Broadway here. The company is headquartered in St. Louis.
Dorothy Antoine, the design director, said the customer may have originally been an “urban customer,” but she’s outgrown that classification. “She’s a little more dressy and not so street,” Antoine said. “She’s definitely less logo-driven now, and she’s embracing her body.”
In addition to the body-hugging denim, wholesaling in the range of $28.50 to $43, the collection features slinky tops, ranging in wholesale prices from $15 to $25, and snug shrugs and sleek outerwear that wholesale from $43 to $54.
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Martin said D.E.M.O is the brand’s “biggest” account, followed by Macy’s East and West, but a chunk of its sales come from its Web site, applebottoms.com. Web sales increased 65 percent from last October to November after Apple Bottoms was mentioned on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in November as one of “Oprah’s Favorite Things.” In the first few days after the mention on the show, the site sold one pair of Apple Bottom jeans per minute. The wave continued: from November to December, there was a 49 percent increase in online sales.
Online sales from January to August this year compared with the same period in 2004 are up 55 percent. “Apple Bottoms is steadily trending up,” said Keith Foy, head of new business development for Efashionsolutions.com, a Web marketer and retailer for Apple Bottoms and 12 other brands — more than half of them catering to the urban, hip-hop market.
Just how much creative influence does Nelly really have over the line? “Nelly comes to us with his ideas. See, he gets to do all the fun stuff. He can call us at 4 a.m. and say, ‘Can we make our jeans do this?’ But we try not to hinder our designers’ creativity. We aren’t saying we know women’s fashion like they do,” Martin said.
This summer, Nelly had his hands full with another fashion venture. The three-time Grammy Award winner inked a deal with Reebok to partner on a collection of men’s apparel, footwear and accessories planned for spring. Women’s merchandise may follow, but plans aren’t definite.