I asked Dick Baker to weigh in on the distribution question. Dick is the president of SIMA, the former president of Op and an apparel veteran.
Men’s
Dick sees growth coming from online, brand extensions, company-owned stores and some limited department store business in areas outside of Southern California. He sees some additional growth at Macy’s West and at Nordstrom, which he considers a large specialty store.
Dick thinks the companies will continue to preserve and protect the core market but he doesn’t see a lot of growth coming from that sector.
Juniors
Dick thinks the biggest opportunity is in juniors. Except for Roxy, Dick said most brands treat juniors as a product extension of the guys, which is a mistake, he said.
“There’s a huge opportunity,” he said. “A lot of surf brands ebb and flow with juniors depending on how much effort they put into it. It’s a completely different business model. It’s very creative, takes a lot of design effort.”
Also, juniors can have broader distribution without hurting the core business. “There’s a lot more fashion and specialty stores for juniors then there are for guys and that’s considered acceptable distribution.”
