Irvine-based R & S; Trading is planning to make a big splash at the Action Sports Retailer Trade Show in September.
The company is not only scheduled to debut its first girls apparel line, Ruby Kiss, but it’s launching the spring line for its first junior’s brand as well as a new line of Sugar cosmetics due out soon in Sephora stores.
R & S; is also working on plans to launch a mall-based specialty retail chain under the Ruby Kiss moniker, and negotiations are under way for its first store in Anaheim.
The 5-year-old company, which has held the license to design and manufacture footwear for the 26Red and Sugar brands for several years, will now produce a total of five apparel brands as well as footwear and accessories. The 26Red line for young men is due out next fall.
“It’s going to be a great, huge year for us,” said Shannon Mattocks, vice president of sales and marketing at R & S.;
Recently, the company purchased the domestic rights to produce lines under the labels 26Red and Sugar from Azita Manufacturing in Irvine. Azita had held the license for the past four years, but recently lost its key designer, Dana Dartez, who left in the spring to head up design for Quiksilver Inc.’s Roxy division. Dartez also sold back her 50% of Sugar at that time.
About a dozen or so Azita employees who worked on the 26Red and Sugar brands have been laid off.
The 26Red and Sugar brands sell in specialty retail stores such as Pacific Sunwear, Zumiez and Fred Segal, in the Delia’s catalog and in Nordstrom department stores. Sales last year were about $6 million and $12 million, respectively, with the shoe division for both brands generating about $5 million.
Heading up the merchandising for the three new apparel brands is industry veteran Adrienne Ernst.
Ernst, who was hired in June to head up Ruby Kiss, spent three years at Quiksilver as vice president, director of merchandise and design for the Roxy division before joining Wet Seal Inc. in November as senior vice president of design and product development. Ernst joined Wet Seal at a difficult time and subsequently left the company in May (see accompanying story).
“I miss the environment and the people at Quiksilver, but what I am doing now is better and more independent. It’s like running my own business instead of running one in a corporate structure with its rules and regulations,” said Ernst, who will share in the profits for the Ruby Kiss brand.
Under Ernst, the Roxy division’s annual sales grew from $28.4 million for the 12 months ended Oct. 31, 1996, to $108.7 million for the same period ended in 1999.
Ernst, a South African native who moved to the United States in 1985, got her start in the business at Guess? Jeans in Los Angeles, where she worked closely with designer George Marciano.
“They are a tough company to work for, but because of their European background there was a bond there with us and they treated me like one of them,” she said. “I was single and worked long hours, traveled with them and gained a lot of experience there.”
She went on to work at Van Nuys-based Cherokee Inc. and Irvine-based Ocean Pacific Apparel Inc. before landing a job with Quiksilver in 1996.
At R & S;, Ernst hired freelance designer Maia Huckeba to create the Ruby Kiss line. The 50-piece line will include dark and light wash denim, solid, printed and plaid fabrics, T-shirts with rhinestones and silk-screened images of the company’s icon, Ruby.
“She’s a little impish looking redhead who is fashion forward, ahead of the other kids,” Ernst explains. “But she is also active and plays soccer, roller blades, rides a scooter, swims and goes to the beach and the mall. We’ve created her in those environments as well as riding in her car talking on the cell phone.”
The collections, which include accessories such as purses, socks and footwear, will sell in stores such as JC Penny, Sears and Kohl’s. Retail prices range from $11.99 to $21.99 for tops and $18 to $34.99 for bottoms.
Meanwhile, just weeks after Ernst joined R & S; Trading, the company has bought the 26Red and Sugar labels.
Azita has also parted ways with a surfwear brand called Ezekiel (see accompanying story).
Ernst also will be directing those brands and has been scrambling to put together lines in time for trade-show season in September.
R & S; Trading, which has 90 employees, already held the footwear and accessory licenses for Sugar Shoes and 26Redtred and it designs and manufactures a boys and young men’s line called No Rules. Joint owners Mary Boncutter and Ivan Spiers started the company in 1995. Spiers separately owns and operates another surfwear label designed and manufactured at the same facilities, called Counter Culture. John Bernard of Spot International owns the rights to the 26Red and Sugar lines that were created by his former designer, Dartez, in 1996. Bernard said he plans to take a more active role in the design of 26Red and Sugar. He also has licenses in the Philippines and Australia for the two brands.
In another coup for R & S; Trading, the company recently hired Carisa Janes to develop a new 22-piece cosmetics line for Sugar aimed at the teen market and launched the line last month in Fred Segal Essentials in Santa Monica. The line also is scheduled to roll out soon in Sephora stores, high-end boutiques, the Internet and department stores, with projected first year sales of $1 million.
Janes is the founder and former creative director of Body & Soul Cosmetics, a line of products that sells in upscale department stores such as Barney’s. She recently created her own consulting business, Isa Design LLC, and intends to continue to consult on the Body & Soul line. n
