The Leisure Collective, home to the Creatures of Leisure surf equipment brand and high-end sunglass brand Otis, is launching a new fashion forward eyewear brand aimed at young women.
The company describes sito shades as “fast moving, cheeky and raw” with approachable price points. The sunglasses, which include lots of color and distinctive frames, will retail for $69.99 and $89.99, with polarized lenses offered at the higher price point.
Price wise, sito will sit above other rack brands in the market but below traditional action sports eyewear brands.
“We thought there was a ton of whitespace for a new brand with accessible price points that is a little more fashion forward but also not disposable,” Eric Carlson, Americas President for the Leisure Collective, told SES in an interview.
While the company will launch the brand in the surf market, it is not necessarily surf specific but rather “a youth lifestyle brand” that they hope will resonate in other markets as well, Eric said.
A key component of the program is enhanced gross margins for retailers.
“As part of our commitment to retail, we’re offering a very aggressive pricing program that starts dealers at a market-leading gross margin level,” Eric said. “We aren’t doing any games on discounting, just super strong margin right out of the gate for all dealers that should make this square footage one of the most profitable in stores.”
Sito is first launching in Australia, then will hit the U.S. retail market March 1. In the U.S., the company will debut sito to the wholesale market at Surf Expo next month.
The team is very excited about the display cases, which are open sell with lights that don’t require electricity, with the lights making the colors and designs of the sunglasses pop, Eric said. They have different shapes and sizes for displays, but the one they are leaning into is a cube. The case rotates, which makes it easy for a group of friends to interact with the glasses at the same time. Retailers have been very enthusiastic about the displays, Eric said.
Here at SES, when we think of the Leisure Collective, we think of it as a fairly male company. We asked Eric how that gels with launching a new female-focused, fashion-oriented brand.
He said the company has been growing its base of female employees, which now stands about at about 25% to 30%. But their key advantage is Lucy Martino, who is in charge of design and creative direction for both Otis and sito. Based in Western Australia, her authenticity and voice really comes through in the product and branding, Eric said.
In a statement, Lucy described sito this way: “Sito is all about festival vibes at the front with a depth of thoughtfulness behind. There’s a lot of color, bold frames and inspiration from musicians and festival fashion in there. That’s backed up by plant-based acetate materials, attention to detail, and sustainable packaging.”
The Leisure Collective had been discussing launching a new brand for a few years now, and decided to forge ahead even during the uncertainty of COVID.
Eric, who joined the Leisure Collective nine months ago after more than 20 years at Smith Optics, said sito was well underway with a solid program in place before he came on board. He was then able to help them fine tune the plan a little bit based on his eyewear experience.
He said the company overall is doing “phenomenally well” during COVID just like many in the outdoor and action sports space. Eric’s been impressed that Leisure Collective has done a better job than most in supplying the market consistently with inventory.
“This goes to their core culture of being disciplined and not trying to do too many things too fast,” he said. “So I think we were able to deliver in general, better than most brands or companies out there.”
The company plans to use that disciplined approach with sito to make sure it has the inventory it needs to meet demand in what can be a quick-turn niche in that price range.
That’s why they’ve placed internal limits on the number of doors for the sito launch to make sure everything runs smoothly before branching out.
“We are betting big on inventory and displays right from the start but want to really study the turn rates which we expect to be anywhere between three to six times per year depending on the retail environment,” Eric said. “Product velocity is a key element of this price range.”
