NEW YORK — Designer Cynthia Steffe and Bernard Chaus Inc. are parting ways, three years after Chaus bought the Cynthia Steffe firm from LF Brands.
Chaus will continue to own and produce the Cynthia Steffe labels.
Steffe and her husband, brand president Richard Roberts, will not renew their contracts when the agreements expire Dec. 31, Chaus and Steffe said Monday. “Cynthia Steffe has announced that after three years’ association with Bernard Chaus Inc., she has decided not to renew her contract,” said a statement from a Steffe spokeswoman. “She is expecting to embark on a new and exciting project that she will announce shortly. Cynthia is grateful to Chaus for their support and wishes them the best.”
The new project is expected to include Roberts, sources indicated.
Chaus plans to grow the Cynthia Steffe trademarks from what industry sources estimate is a $24 million wholesale business, without changing the channel of distribution or price. The line is generally sold in better department and specialty stores and wholesales for about $69 to $289.
“We believe that it is the right time to take the Cynthia Steffe brand, and overall business, to a new level,” Josephine Chaus, Bernard Chaus president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “We thank Cynthia for her contribution to the growth of the business. She leaves the brand in the capable hands of a talented design and merchandising team. We expect to announce both a new design director and president shortly.”
In addition to the contemporary Cynthia Steffe labels, the $136.8 million sportswear firm owns the Josephine Chaus and Chaus brands, and holds the license for Kenneth Cole Reaction women’s sportswear.
Chaus bought Cynthia Steffe in January 2004 from LF Brands for an estimated $5 million.
Launched in 1989, Steffe became a division of LF Brands — then Leslie Fay Cos. — in 2000. Extricating itself from LF Brands, which had gone out of business just weeks before, Cynthia Steffe had volume approaching $20 million in 2004, and Roberts said they spoke to companies throughout the world before settling on Chaus.
“What we liked about Chaus was it wasn’t one of the biggest companies,” Roberts told WWD at the time. “We didn’t want to bury ourselves inside one of the big three or four. That’s a dangerous thing. We’re not a company that wants to be homogenized.”