Manhattan Beachwear Inc.’s annual sales have grown tenfold to nearly $700 million since Linsalata Capital Partners became its majority owner six years ago. Now the Cypress-based swimwear designer and manufacturer with a roster of 55 brands is about to get bigger.
“It’s tough to stay on top, so we are always on our toes,” said President Brenda West, who’s “looking to on-board a couple more” swim and resort labels by year-end via acquisition and licensing deals. “We have a lot of opportunities that are presented to us. We are evaluating, doing a lot of due diligence with our retailers as to what type of product would fit their current needs in this business climate.”
Manhattan’s proprietary swimwear brands include La Blanca, 24th & Ocean, The Bikini Lab, and Maxine of Hollywood. It picked up women’s active and lifestyle apparel brand Green Dragon Clothing when it acquired Los Angeles-based CMK Manufacturing in 2014. Manhattan also designs, manufactures and markets under licenses for Lucky Brand, Kenneth Cole New York, Kenneth Cole Reaction, Polo Ralph Lauren, Lauren Ralph Lauren, Trina Turk, Nanette Lepore, Sperry Top-Sider and Hobie Swim.
Its brands are sold at Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s, as well as swimwear boutiques, and compete with Tustin-based RAJ Swim, Swimwear Anywhere Inc., A&M Sportswear Co. Inc. and In Mocean Group.
Breakout Brand
The company’s superstar is the La Blanca label, which brings in an estimated $100 million annually. It came into the fold as part of Manhattan’s 2010 buy of Apparel Ventures Inc., then based in Gardena—“a big marriage of two huge swim companies,” according to West, that occurred less than a year after Manhattan founder Allan Colvin sold a majority stake to Linsalata in Cleveland, Ohio, for an estimated $20 million to $50 million.
Manhattan is now looking to protect the La Blanca asset with MAP, or minimum advertised price policy, which prevents retailers from displaying—online or at brick-and-mortar stores—any deals for La Blanca swimwear that fall below a certain agreed-upon price. They can still discount the goods but can’t advertise the markdown.
“It’s the largest swimwear brand as its own entity there is,” West said. “We really want to make sure that our retailers can drive the most profit possible with MAP pricing. It started for this season, on Aug. 1, and if it’s successful and we can agree with our retailers that this is how we are going to move forward, then we are going to launch it for a couple more of our higher-end brands.”
She anticipates the pricing policy will be “a little hard” in the beginning, “because retailers are used to the ways they’ve always done it, and I think some of them think they won’t get called out on it, or get that warning that they can’t play like this anymore, so we’ll see.”
West is sweetening the deal with a relaunch of La Blanca’s 1980s bestseller, a one-piece bathing suit featuring two buttons on the side and high leg cutouts that’s scheduled to hit store racks in the spring.
“[During Miami Swim Week] it was the got-to-have-it-on-my-order—even several retailers were asking us for exclusive colors,” she said. “We’ll do a big ad campaign all around that suit.”
Manhattan’s media budget for the 2 Button Anniversary suit is “more than we normally do, about 3% to 5% of sales” and will include print and digital advertising and exposure through bloggers and celebrity influencers. The ads will be created mostly in-house—the swimwear manufacturer also pays retailers to promote its brands.
New Manhattan Director of Marketing Renee Borsack, who starts work this week, will spearhead the effort. She served as director of marketing and director of public relations at Experian PLC in Costa Mesa from 2008 to 2014 and in a similar role at St. John Knits International Inc. in Irvine from 1993 to 2005. She replaces Carrie Seifert, who now is consulting.
Teamwork
Manhattan employs about 300 at its 75,000-square-foot manufacturing and design hub in Cypress and a 200,000-square-foot distribution center in Buena Park. That includes about 85 seamsters, or as West puts it, “wonderful people that have worked with us for a very long time.”
She started with Manhattan 27 years ago as an account manager, a role she kept for 10 years until her promotion to senior vice president in 2000. She became president in 2009.
West said she grew up on a “cattle ranch in North Dakota.”
“I was the only girl in my class, and there were six people in my graduating class in high school.”
A summer job she took while attending North Dakota State University introduced her to the retail industry.
“I was an assistant manager for a shopping mall, and the manager passed away while I was on the job only a short amount of time,” she said. The mall owner asked her to step in as manager. “I’m 18, and I go, ‘OK.’”
She negotiated a lease contract with Kmart during her tenure, “a hot retailer at the time,” and the following summer returned as store manager for a mall tenant.
West joined the Vanity Fair Inc. apparel brand as a swimwear buyer after graduation, a job that led her to cross paths with Manhattan founder Colvin.
“I’ve been working for him ever since,” she said. “We have an incredible team.”
