MUNICH, Germany — Apparel manufacturers at the spring ISPO sporting goods exhibition here were banking on snowboarding being one of the next growth sports.
Almost every apparel company showing in the ski halls at the five-day show featured a unisex snowboard line. That included the more mainstream skiwear producers, such as Luhta, Columbia Sportswear under the Convert brand, Head’s new Obscure label and Campari, which did it under the brand Mad Kow.
These companies offered a toned-down version of the more outlandish styles shown by such firms as Fire & Ice and Oxbow.
As evidenced at the show, which ran through Feb. 27, the snowboard look for next winter for women and men will be boxy, oversize jackets in either natural colors or bold ethnic prints, baggy pants, felt jackets and thick knitwear and hats. Fabrics are wool, Supplex nylon, Polartec and microfibers.
Many of the companies rushing into the market seem to be hoping the look will turn into general streetwear as well as being used for snowboarding.
“A lot of this is just plain casualwear,” admitted Thomas Stremel, product manager for the Obscure line at Head Sports Wear International.
Head’s Obscure line is priced to retail from about $175 to $292 for outerwear; $87 to $134 for knitwear, and $175 to $263 for pants. The lower price points tend to be for the more casualwear-oriented pieces and the higher ones for the functional apparel in more technical fabrics, Stremel said.
Manufacturers weren’t the only ones hoping snowboarding takes off. European sporting goods and specialist ski retailers said they already are planning to devote more space to snowboarding equipment and apparel because of its popularity. The wide range of snowboarding looks will only widen the sport’s appeal for those on the slopes and those on the streets, they said.
Despite the buzz surrounding snowboarding, a study by the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry didn’t list it among the 10 sports it expects will grow between now and the year 2000. The study said the fastest-growing sports will be soccer, basketball, hiking/trekking, in-line skating, golf, walking, mountain biking, baseball, camping and exercising.
Activewear is expected to be the fastest-growing product category, followed by footwear, equipment, licensed team wear, uniforms, skiwear and winter apparel and swimwear, according to the study.
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Despite that, snowboarding also is having an impact on designs in skiwear, where styles for next winter are looser. Fabrics are mixed for texture and structure and toned-down colors such as cream, black, grays, deep green and eggplant are popular. Ethnic prints drawing on Indian, American Indian and South American influences were prevalent at ISPO.
“The look is squarer and the colors are anti-fashion now,” said Jukka Luhtanen, marketing director at Luhta Oy. “Everything is more subdued.”
Several skiwear companies showed styles that could be worn for skiing and hiking in an attempt to capitalize on the growth of the outdoor sector. Colors ranged from naturals to deep jewel tones, and ethnic prints also were popular.
Despite the outdoor boom, few manufacturers are developing apparel styles specifically for women. Executives said active female hikers prefer the same styles as men, who still dominate the sport in numbers.
“Female participation partially influences our designs cosmetically, but mainly we do the same designs in shoes or apparel for women that we do for men,” said Axel Burkhardt, product manager for outdoor at Adidas. It was left to the activewear, swimwear and licensed products manufacturers to show lines specifically for women.
When it comes to its women’s activewear, Adidas is hoping to boost sales as a result of the explosion of racing stripe motifs — an Adidas signature look — on the designer runways. But the company has no plans to move into fashion.
“We are not a haute couture company,” said Regina Boltz, category manager for swimwear and women’s fitness apparel at Adidas. “We do not want to take the sports look and put it on a fashion garment. We will do a real puritan sports look that is functional.”
In casualwear, sales of licensed products from professional American sports leagues and U.S. colleges continue to grow in Europe despite an increasing number of European and American manufacturers offering it. Most of the major U.S. producers had stands at ISPO, but their lines are mainly unisex.
Starter, however, plans to introduce a women’s-only line in the fourth quarter, built around one of its endorsers, Florence Joyner-Kersee, said Robert Felice, Starter’s managing director of international. Its core licensed-products business is generally split equally between men and women, Felice said.
Starter also plans to open a European headquarters in Holland this year to oversee sales and marketing of its distributors.
Another U.S. exhibitor, Columbia Sportswear, is stepping up its distribution in Europe with the formation of a German subsidiary, but is going slowly in introducing its jeans and footwear.
“We are focusing on our outerwear side in Europe for now,” said Tim Boyle, Columbia’s president. “We don’t yet have the critical mass in Europe that we have in the U.S. We need more brand building here before we can carry the jeans, which we still are developing in the U.S. We should sell 500,000 pairs this year in the U.S., but that’s a drop in the bucket.”
Except for the snowboarding excitement in the ski halls, this edition of ISPO was relatively quiet. This February stand has become to a large extent a local German affair, coming as it does on the heels of the Super Show extravaganza in Atlanta in January.
The organizers said attendance inched up to 38,000 from 37,162 the previous year, but the reduced impact of the show was reflected in the scaled-back presence of industry behemoths Nike and Reebok.