I stopped by the Fox Head Inc. booth at Agenda, and got an update for next season from Tony Sanchez, the Director of Merchandise for Men’s clothing.
Sanchez said Fox’s overall business is doing well. I asked particularly about the licensed products it had with Monster and Rockstar that had been flying off shelves at stores from PacSun to Glik’s. He said the items are still having better than average sell-through at stores, but not at the same astronomical rate like they had last year.
Sanchez was excited to talk about three new developments the brand has in store for next year. On the clothing side, they did a collaboration with Red Bull and Travis Pastrana. Fox is currently building a collection called RB199 (Red Bull is Travis Pastrana’s sponsor, and 199 is his number).
The collection will consist of fleece, tees, and shirts that will be offered at a slightly higher than average price points, made from higher quality materials. They will also have some MX gear in the line.
While Travis used to ride for Fox years ago, he is currently not one of Fox’s sponsored riders, so I thought this was an interesting arrangement.
Sanchez explained that the collaboration is strictly between Travis and Red Bull together with Fox doing the backend.
There will be no Fox branding on any of the items, but Fox will design, manufacture, and sell all of the goods, which will hit stores next Fall. He said some of the details are still being worked out, but that he thinks the product should be a hit, especially since Pastrana will be racing NASCAR this coming year.
Aside from creating RB199, Sanchez said the brand will be expanding their technical items within their sportswear line.
“We are a performance technical company and our DNA is in building technical items so we’ve expanded that into our sports wear,” he said. Sanchez showed me a few pieces in the line that looked like regular tees, but were made from fabric that wicks away moisture.
Sanchez said they’ve added more technical fabrics like that to tees so guys could wear them out on their bike or out on town or after they ride. He said the brand will add at least one or two technical based items into all of their men’s categories besides tees in the next year.
Big news for Fox in 2011 is the launch of the 24K series Eyewear collection. Fox has been doing eyewear through a licensing agreement with Oakley for a few seasons now and they are putting a lot of focus into the eyewear category in 2011.
There are 15 styles that range from sport performance to lifestyle and Polarized options. Prices range from $90 to $170, and all eyewear is produced by Oakley. Sanchez said the Fox customer is used to spending money on his gear whether it’s for his bike or helmet so it made sense to have some higher price point quality frames in the line.
The glasses will be sold through Fox’s normal distribution channels.
