LSPACE America LLC in Irvine, following cues from the fashion industry, widened its focus a couple of years ago to include “easy-to-wear” apparel along with its signature swimwear, and the move appears to be paying off.
Its revenue this year is just under $25 million, up from the $1.4 million it posted in 2008 when founder Monica Wise sold a stake to Donald Clark and Paul Carr of C & C Partners Ltd. in Irvine, which at the time also had a license to the Sanuk U.S.A. LLC name for the U.S., Canada and Europe markets.
“When I got into this business 15 years ago, it was very swim-and-you’re-done between July and November, where now it’s turned into a year-round business,” Wise said. “We have new product releases every month. That has been huge to our growth.”
LSPACE, employing 24 at its new digs just south of the Irvine Spectrum, doubled the number of apparel and active-wear styles it offered to retailers for the 2017 season. It also threw hats into the lineup and expanded its sandals collaboration with Cocobelle in New York.
“The customer that loves LSPACE, we want to let her wear it during the day, not only when she’s in a bikini,” said Angi Hart, the brand’s director of merchandising and sales, who in 2013 came from Billabong, where she was national sales manager for the women’s division.
“LSPACE everyday—that’s our theory, what we live by,” Wise added. “We want to see our customer every day.”
The company’s apparel products can be worn over a swimsuit and include shorts, tops, tanks, maxi dresses, tunics and pants. It also has the LActive line for exercising, yoga or stand-up paddling.
The brand attended the Project fashion show in Las Vegas this month for the first time, looking to add more boutique accounts.
“We are always in front of our swim buyers,” Wise said, adding that boutique brands “don’t always shop swim, so they don’t know that we have these great offerings. It’s a different buyer.”
Its swimwear starts at about $80 per piece. Tunics and other apparel sell for about $130 and up. The brand can be found at major department stores, including Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, as well as at Jack’s Surfboards, Hobie Surf Shop, Everything But Water and Diane’s Beachwear. Its footwear has made its way to Anthropologie—a door the brand couldn’t get into before the expansion into easy-to-wear.
LSPACE recently took its Canada distribution in-house, including accounts with Holt, Renfrew & Co., The Bumwrap, Hudson’s Bay and Still Life. The move was a “game changer,” according to Wise.
“It was the right time to do it,” she said. “We wanted to increase our volume up there, give the buyers the flexibility to reorder and grow their business. Through the distributor, they were able to do that once a year.”
Hart added that it wanted to standardize its business strategies across countries. “We wanted more control of the growth, pricing.”
LSPACE made its mark in the swimwear arena as one of the first brands to sell bikini tops and bottoms as separates, Wise said, now an industry standard. Its local competitors include Cypress-based Speedo USA and Manhattan Beachwear Inc., RAJ Swim in Tustin and Irvine-based Beach Bunny Swimwear.
Wise moved from New York in 2000 to found the company in Santa Ana, where its swimwear is still made by about 70 seamstresses. She declined to identify her manufacturing partner, laughing, “I don’t want anybody else calling her.”
