Costa Mesa-based Rays Apparel Inc., an apparel maker for brands such as Ocean Pacific and Jimmy Z, has picked up a new licensing agreement to design and produce a children’s line for outdoor clothing maker Woolrich Inc.
The inaugural fall line of Woolrich children’s clothes is set to break in January at the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show in Salt Lake City, with delivery to stores set for summer. There also are plans to develop a spring line next year, said James Stark III, Rays Apparel president.
Rays Apparel has hired four designers to come up with the new line, and is in the process of putting together a sales force in New York, California, Dallas and other key markets, Stark said.
Woolrich, Penn.-based Woolrich makes outdoor woolen clothing and products such as “buffalo shirts,” jackets and blankets that sell in stores such as Sport Chalet, Sportmart and Oshman’s Sporting Goods.
Rays Apparel, whose staff fluctuates between 120 and 170 employees, also has leased additional warehouse space for its growing T-shirt business, Stark said. The 25,600-square-foot facility in Irvine is the company’s second building. Rays Apparel signed a five-year lease valued at $1.6 million. Grubb & Ellis’ Newport Beach office represented Rays Apparel and CB Richard Ellis represented the owner Landco of Los Angeles.
The company plans to move roughly 12 employees into the new building. The Irvine site will help free space in Rays Apparel’s existing facility to produce the new Woolrich brand as well as existing brands led by Irvine-based Ocean Pacific Apparel Corp., Stark said.
“We’ve had tremendous growth with our OP master license over the past two years,” Stark said. “Within that, the T-shirt business has grown. For us to stay on top of that, we have to carry a lot of inventory. We have to be able to turn around an order in three weeks as opposed to nine weeks as we were doing before.”
Stark has owned the company since 1993 with his partners Charles Yeung and Raymond Cheng, co-chairmen of Glorious Sun, a Hong Kong manufacturing company with facilities in China, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India, Bangladesh and the Philippines. n
