NEW YORK — Over the last 20 years, Jack Wu created men’s outerwear label Rainforest and turned it into a $20 million business. Now he is counting on many of those loyal customers to persuade their female significant others to try the brand’s new women’s outerwear line this fall.
Wu actually wanted to start his business in women’s outerwear when he first opened in a space in the Empire State Building in 1987. He learned the ins and outs of the apparel business, especially sales and production, working for Goshing, his family’s company in Taiwan. The firm, which has four factories there and two more in Singapore and Malaysia, specialized in production, selling 2 million units of outerwear annually, he said.
Once he relocated to the U.S., Wu invited a few buyers to see his women’s collection. They quickly informed him that his office’s location was all wrong, since the Empire State Building housed mostly men’s businesses.
“But I had a 10-year lease, so I went into men’s,” he said with a laugh.
Rainforest now sells about 3 million units annually, and market research shows that many customers own two of the brand’s jackets, Wu said.
The 25-piece women’s collection, to be launched in the fall, is expected to be sold in 150 to 200 specialty stores, according to Kathy McCloskey, the firm’s vice president of women’s outerwear. McCloskey, who has 15 years of experience, 13 of them at Burberry, joined the company in December. Ebony Stewart is designing the line.
Wholesale prices for the women’s collection range from $80 for a techno plaid vest to $200 for a metal blend shell with a goose-down lining and removable rabbit collar and fox-fur trim. First-year projected wholesale volume is between $1 million and $1.5 million, Wu said. Placing the product in the right doors was a priority, he added.
One of the more popular items in the group is a no-seam, reversible down vest. Unlike a stitched garment, the norm in down vests and jackets, the no-seam styles are made with a pressed technique that has been used in the outdoor industry, but not in the fashion sector, Wu said. “The beauty of it is, there are no holes,” he added.
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The Rainforest women’s collection is aimed at consumers from their late 20s through their 50s and will be featured in the brand’s fall print advertising campaign, shot in Newport, R.I. The ads will run in Forbes Life, Departures and The New York Times Sunday magazine among others publications, Wu said.