Less than a year after it was launched to much fanfare, Garden Grove-based Elleven’s parent company has abandoned the junior’s surfwear brand after slower-than-expected holiday sales and prospects of a slow economy.
Elleven, one of several branded divisions of Bodywaves, was scheduled to occupy 10 booths at the Action Sports Retailer trade show last week, but company officials called a couple of weeks before the show to cancel, said show director Court Overin.
The news of Elleven’s end comes at a time when the surf industry’s junior’s market is on an upswing, led by top brands such as Quiksilver’s Roxy, Rusty Girls, Billabong Girls, O’Neill and Hurley Girlie. It also follows the launch of a new teen magazine, Surfing Girl.
“It’s a shame it closed, because sales were going off,” said one former sales representative who asked to remain anonymous. The closure of the division comes after record bookings for the company’s spring 2001 line, said another source.
Bodywaves, founded by the Su Group in 1986, has 170 OC employees and 870 company-wide, with estimated sales upwards of $60 million. Its other brands include B Pro, Surfwaves and AKS-AMY.
Joyce Churchill, a Bodywaves spokeswoman, said the company is focusing its resources on its dominant private label brands that include the manufacture of men’s and boys’ apparel under the Mossimo brand for Target. Among Elleven’s five staff members was its marketing director, William Cram, who reportedly left in October to start his own business in Galveston, Texas. Head designer Pamela Zoolalian left in January to become co-designer with Wendy Martinez for O’Neill junior’s line in Irvine. Elleven also ended its relationships with eight independent sales representatives and its marketing agreement with Solodizine, an advertising agency in San Juan Capistrano.
Elleven, which had anticipated $2.5 million in annual sales, was the title sponsor of the U.S. Open of Women’s Surfing in Huntington Beach for the past two years and its brand was plastered on trash cans across Huntington Beach as a summer sponsor of the Adopt-A-Beach program. Bodywaves initially invested roughly $500,000 to build the brand and sponsor a professional women’s surf team headed by Prue Jeffries and Felina Spires. The two surfers were sent on a 15-day surfing trip aboard a boat in the Indian Ocean to shoot the company’s first catalog with renowned surf photographer Art Brewer. n
