Lake Forest-based Sole Technology Inc. still knows how to party.
Sole’s household name shoes, etnies, just finished celebrating the big “20” with a bash complete with celebs, a Beastie Boys concert and skateboard contest.
But it was back to work Monday.
The maker of skateboarding-inspired shoes and clothes is looking more like a big apparel company these days.
It recently launched an apparel division, “Altamont”,a mix of street wear clothes. Think denim pants with different washes and shirts with vintage fabrics.
And Sole is showing other signs of maturity, recently opening a warehouse in Fontana and continuing to hire more people.
The company nearly doubled its physical size with the 315,000-square-foot Inland Empire distribution center.
Sole spent the past year scouting locations for the center, including in Orange County near its headquarters.
Pierre Senizergues, Sole’s founder and chief executive, said he picked Fontana because the building was big enough to handle the distribution of clothes and shoes for the company’s seven brands.
Sole shifted its distribution to Fontana from Lake Forest, where the operation had been spread among several buildings totaling nearly 175,000 square feet.
About 60 workers are set to run the Fontana operations, with some coming from the OC headquarters and others set to be hired. So far about six managers have made the move. It’s not clear how many workers will go.
Sole’s operations now total about 436,000 square feet, up from more than 200,000 last year. That includes its Lake Forest campus, which houses research and development, design, sales and marketing, and a New York showroom.
The company said it plans to keep its Lake Forest warehouse space, and use it to grow research and development, and its other departments, including clothing.
On the clothes front, Sole’s Altamont could be up against some heavy hitters, in-cluding Hun-tington Beach-based Quiksil-ver Inc. and Irvine-based Bil-labong USA’s El-ement.
But the real competition for the fashionable clothes could be Costa Mesa-based Volcom Inc.
Senizergues said he’s hired a sales manager to promote the Altamont line to skate and fashion boutiques.
“We saw a huge opportunity and void in the market for an apparel brand that stepped outside the traditional skate wear and offered a fresh point of view on modern street wear,” Senizergues said. “Altamont apparel is our answer to that void.”
Sole’s exploded since it made its U.S. debut two decades ago with one line of shoes, etnies.
Senizergues, a French-born world champion skateboarder, licensed the brand from a company in France. He later bought the brand and branched out.
In the past decade, he introduced several other shoe and clothing labels for men and women: etnies Girl, & #233;S (an athletic shoe for skateboard shops), Emerica (an anti-fashion skateboarding shoe also for skate shops) and ThirtyTwo (a snowboarding boot sold in action sport stores alongside etnies).
The company’s latest push: expand the clothing side of each brand.
The move is fueling Sole’s need for workers. The company hired some 24 workers in 2006. It now counts more than 450 employees companywide, the bulk of who are in OC. Sales are estimated at more than $200 million.
The company has built a following by offering garb for people who skate and those who just want to look cool and be a part of the action sports culture,skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding.
Sole also has diversified distribution of its etnies line, which sells in many different stores, including Huntington Beach-based Jack’s Surfboards and Torrance-based Becker Surf, which has shops in Mission Viejo and Huntington Beach.
That’s helped as some retailers are facing challenges. Take Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., which has struggled with declining same-store sales.
“Etnies continues to be one of Pacific Sunwear’s strongest brands,” Senizergues said. “As with all of our retail partners, we are continually supportive through both the challenges as well as successes.”
Sole also generates a lot of buzz with its skate park, which it built near its headquarters with the city of Lake Forest.
A couple of weeks ago, the company drew about 5,000 people for its etnies 20th anniversary skateboard event. The park is free, mainly because Senizergues foots a lot of the cost.
Sole also has beefed up marketing, including hiring Christian Scott as general manager of consumer marketing. He oversees new marketing teams for each of the seven brands.
The company’s biggest challenge: handling its “growing pains and keeping the momentum of our success,” Senizergues said.
“I never would have thought that my passion for skateboarding would have led me to my dreams of owning a global company with seven brands that is represented in more than 70 countries around the world,” he said.
Sole continues to fund its own expansion, Senizergues said. The company, which has gotten a lot of buyout offers in the past, has no plans to sell or go public, he said.
