After soft-launching a women’s collection this fall, Swiss Army’s Victorinox Apparel LLC is investing internally in hopes of taking a bigger cut of the women’s apparel business by fall 2007.
Swiss Army Brands, which, excluding licenses, has an estimated $155 million in sales volume, has hired 10 fashion veterans to more than double that volume in its second year.
Drawing on the function and versatility of the Swiss Army knife, the travel-oriented Victorinox women’s sportswear primarily uses proprietary man-made fabrics, with technical properties such as wind resistance and UV protection, and features practical details like a retractable wallet — with a slot for a Swiss Army knife, of course. About 10 percent of the line is performance activewear for winter sports.
“The clothes have an industrial quality that links to our heritage,” said Johanne Shepley Siff, president of global apparel and retail. “We find our heritage a really inspiring foundation to expand upon.”
The fall collection wholesales from $26 for a T-shirt to $600 for outerwear.
For the soft launch this fall, the line did about $500,000 in wholesale, and is expected to do about $1 million for the slightly expanded spring collection, according to Siff. But the big growth will come in the line’s third season, hopes Siff, who estimates second-year wholesale volume will double to $3.5 million.
Eventually, Siff predicts the women’s line could surpass the more established men’s line, which began about three years ago and does about $8 million in wholesale. The collections share design director Donrad Duncan, but have separate design teams.
The firm’s flagships in Manhattan and Tokyo carry the women’s apparel, as do a few high-end specialty shops in affluent areas like San Francisco, Vail, Colo. and Jackson Hole, Wyo. Serious growth will come this fall, according to Siff, as the company expands into more high-end department and specialty store accounts.
“We are handpicking stores known to represent collections that maybe require a little explaining,” Siff said. “The line should be able to sit comfortably next to designer brands.”
Siff knows quite a bit about designer brands. Before she joined Victorinox this year, Siff was at Prada USA Corp., where she was senior vice president for sales and marketing for North America, and prior to that, worked as Comme des Garçons’ U.S. general manager over wholesale and retail divisions.
Related Articles
You May Also Like
Siff is one of 10 recent Swiss Army additions hired to spur women’s apparel. Phoebe Kim took the new role of women’s senior designer in April. Among other additions is a new director of planning, director of retail and vice president of global sales.
“We are creating dramatic changes internally,” Siff said. “This is a year of investment and preparation.”
The fall 2007 line will launch in February out of a Milan showroom, and will show again out of the SoHo showroom in New York.