Los Angeles-based Seven For All Mankind will launch for spring Emerald Rice, a new denim brand that experiments with new wash and finish techniques on denim jeans.
Available for women and men, the line carries the same fits as Seven For All Mankind, but will stand alone as a separate brand. The label will read: “Emerald Rice, a division of Seven For All Mankind.”
“Everyone is going dark and clean when it comes to denim these days, and we do that very successfully at Seven,” said Rick Crane, president of sales and merchandising at Seven For All Mankind, who also worked on the design of Emerald Rice with Alfredo Settimio, founder and owner of the Great China Wall brand. “So with the trend being clean, we thought that now would be a good time to do the opposite and experiment with something new.”
This is the second time the two companies are collaborating. They worked together on a co-branded line that launched last year.
Many of the jeans and skirts are made with a new, loosely woven denim from Japan that Crane said is made by using old machines to create the fabric. There are also many special elements, like yarn embroideries, hand-sanding and tearing. He said the fabric’s average price is about $10 to $15 a yard, which makes the Emerald Rice line more expensive than the Seven For All Mankind collection. Emerald Rice’s bottoms wholesale from $115 to $170, and cashmere sweaters wholesale for $134 to $225.
“The fabrics we use for this line cost about 50 percent more than what we use for Seven,” Crane said. “There’s a lot of handwork involved as well, so we are targeting about 50 high-end specialty stores for this line.”
Crane said Barneys New York, Kitson in Los Angeles and Fred Segal in Beverly Hills have already picked up the collection.
Crane said he expects to reach first-year sales of $2 million to $3 million with the Emerald Rice line.