Stalking Beaches for Clothing Trends : Researcher Helps Clients Get Jump on New Sportswear Fads

Armed with a thick clipboard of forms and a backpack full of trinkets, Steve Sakamoto prepares for yet another tough day on the job. Dressed in a T-shirt, baggy shorts and thongs, Sakamoto sets out across the hot sands at Huntington Beach in search of--information.

As the president, chief executive, owner and chief worker of Market Research Active Sports, which specializes in clothing trends research, Sakamoto spends most working days stalking subjects on the beaches for his extensive questionnaire on clothing preferences.

Beside revolutionizing the clothing industry, Sakamoto’s work has helped fashion Orange County as one of the premier clothing-trend-setting areas of the world.

“In the last 10 years, virtually everything in beach clothing-active sportswear has started in Orange County,” said Paul Huessenstamm, owner of Newport Surf & Sport shop in Newport Beach. “What’s selling in Newport Beach will sell in Ohio.”

For example, the longer shorts and woven, button-down shirts that were stylish in recent years were trends first accepted in Orange County. In 1981, Sakamoto found that “hard-core beach youths” in the county were wearing above-the-knee, 1960s-style madras shorts that they were purchasing in thrift shops.

Trends Begin on the Coast

Orange County is “at least” one-third to one-half of any youth beach study, Sakamoto said, because of its profusion of beaches. Trends begin on the coast, Sakamoto said, because active beachgoers “are always striving to be different.”

Orange County youths also tend to be more affluent than their counterparts in other coastal areas of Southern California, and thus they have money to purchase the latest haberdashery.

Working from his Volkswagen Scirocco, Sakamoto, 33, hikes the beaches from Ventura to San Diego, gathering research for his core group of clothing manufacturers and retailers, information that they use to determine how long this year’s shorts should be, what colors and styles of shirts will sell and what kind of swimsuits will draw buyers.

Since the sandy shore is his office, Sakamoto has an entirely different view of the beach from the majority of humanity. “The beach is hot, the sun is unbearable, it’s like the Sahara Desert,” he said.

And his busiest research season has just begun. “Things really break open after Memorial Day,” he said. Before Memorial Day, only a scattering of people populate the beaches, thus making data collection more time-consuming, he said.

The sociology of beach research gathering is an art and science in itself, Sakamoto has found.

Patrolling the beach looking for subjects, Sakamoto instantly dismisses a man clad in a flashy flowered shirt as a tourist and therefore an unsuitable subject for his survey.

Identifying Social Leader

In approaching a group on the beach, Sakamoto strives to get the first interview with the leader of the group, who is easy to identify, he explains. “He’s the loudest, usually stands out, is the biggest (and) his followers are usually grouped around him. If you start (the interviews) with a follower, the (major-)domo might interfere with the data collection because he feels threatened.”

Essentially the same tactics are used with groups of women.

Sakamoto normally uses two to four other researchers, mostly college students who are “surfer men and jock women. Those who live the beach life style will have better success as interviewers,” he said. “An egghead . . . would get ripped apart. This is hard; it’s no fun job.”

In approaching a group, he instructs his workers to “get the first interview with the domo. Then the others are easy.”

Sakamoto often directs his researchers to take a zigzag course along the beach, thus ensuring a good sampling by getting those beachgoers who like to deposit themselves at water’s edge and also those who prefer the drier climes 50 yards back.

Employing flash cards, charts and swatches of material, respondents are asked to select fabric favorites, style preferences and brand-name choices for shorts, swimsuits, shirts, sweat shirts and other items.

Other Favorites Named

They also identify their favorite magazines, radio stations and television programs, and thus Sakamoto can link clothing trends with other cultural happenings. For example, he was able to correlate the growth of New Wave music with preferences for longer shorts and shorter hair.

After the interview is complete, subjects are given magazines, combs and other small gifts, tokens of gratitude for enduring 20 minutes of questioning.

His finished research, which is the result of about 650 interviews, and can run to several hundred pages, is then delivered to clients in binders.

Manufacturers and retailers describe Sakamoto’s research as “extremely interesting,” “really good stuff” and “very useful.”

Gil Gass, marketing director at the El Segundo-based sunglass and T-shirt concern, Vuarnet-France, said Sakamoto’s findings “are on the mark, no doubt about that.”

Dac Clark used Sakamoto’s research extensively when he was president of Wild West Stores. Sakamoto’s research “gave us a sense of what was going to happen,” he said. “Instead of tiptoeing into a season, you would race in with a commitment.”

Wild West Stores were purchased by General Mills in 1981 and renamed We Are Sportswear in 1984 when the focus was changed to high-fashion youth apparel. The stores folded late last year and Clark is now president of Sunset Traders Inc., the Costa Mesa-based licensee for Gotcha Sportwear Inc., which also is based in Costa Mesa.

Clients Hesitant at First

In the beginning, clothing manufacturers and retailers were not always as enthusiastic about buying market research.

They were very skeptical, Sakamoto recalls, when he reported the trend for longer shorts. But the following year, when his research indicated clear preferences for the longer shorts, smaller manufacturers began making them and then the “cattle herd followed,” Sakamoto said.

Despite the growing renown of his work, Sakamoto cheerfully acknowledges that he “fell into this business by accident.”

As a graduate student in communications at Cal State Long Beach, Sakamoto worked an internship as a researcher for Surfer magazine in San Juan Capistrano. Based in part on his findings, Surfer switched from bimonthly publication to monthly publication in 1977, an event that not only boosted the magazine’s fortunes but also “totally changed” Sakamoto’s life.

Realizing the potential of market research, Sakamoto found that his college studies provided a foundation for marketing work. Surfer suggested there might be a need for beachwear research and a career was launched.

In a conversion reminiscent of the 90-pound weakling who became Mr. Universe, Sakamoto went from a stuttering introvert to a glib extrovert. Still, getting his first paying account was a traumatic experience, he said. “I stared at the phone and said, ‘You gotta do it, man, your bank account is dwindling.’ ”

Sakamoto made the calls, several retail chains and manufacturers said yes and Sakamoto’s bank balance escaped a fall into the red.

Plans Newsletter

Beside his market research, Sakamoto labors at launching a quarterly clothing and life style trend newsletter aimed at clothing retailers, manufacturers, buyers and advertising agencies. He describes the planned publication as a “tool to help retailers and manufacturers adjust clothing lines.”

First, however, Sakamoto is looking to get a place to deposit his sandy feet after a tough day on the job. “I think I’m going to get an office in Irvine,” he said. For now, his Long Beach apartment serves as headquarters for his statistical empire.

Sakamoto’s work has given him a detailed understanding of each beach along the Southern California coast, a knowledge he employs in choosing a location for particular studies.

Driving along the coast, Sakamoto spews out facts on “beach neighborhoods” with the speed of a tour guide who is far behind schedule.

“Each beach caters to a different age group,” he said. In addition, neighborhood groups from inland areas tend to favor certain beaches. So, there are Cerritos beaches, Bellflower beaches and Whittier beaches, particular locales where youths from those areas are likely to frequent. Sakamoto weighs all these considerations before deciding where to deploy his researchers.

Can Spot Inlanders

“See those guys,” he says, indicating a group of four young men dressed in shorts and bland sport shirts. “They are inlanders. You can tell (by) how they are dressed.”

Knowing where inlanders may be soaking themselves is important because trends tend to start with the active beach crowd and move inland.

“Trends that start in Southern California reach every part of the nation within six to nine months,” Sakamoto said.

Despite the 20-minute length of each survey, only about one person in 40 rejects his request, he said.

On a good day, each researcher can complete 15 interviews, and the data is then entered into computers that calculate the percentages of each response.

Now in its seventh year, Sakamoto’s business grosses about $100,000 annually. Each of his 10 core clients--manufacturers and retailers--pays $2,500 yearly for Sakamoto’s basic “Summer Surf/Active Sportswear Consumer Beach Study,” which is completed by Sept. 1 and projects clothing preferences for the following year.

In addition, Sakamoto does numerous speciality studies each year, such as a study to determine the acceptance of certain beer labels, research that meant lugging two six-packs of beer around for a week to show interviewees.

Ferocious Competition

The floor-to-ceiling clothing racks at Paul Huessenstamm’s Newport Beach shop illustrate just how ferociously competitive the $10-billion casual wear industry is and how rapidly clothing tastes change.

Clothing trends typically begin with a few youths at the beach and then move out along the coast and into specialty shops like his, Huessenstamm said. Fashions then move to inland shops and then to department stores. But fashions change so fast, larger buyers have a difficult time keeping up, Huessenstamm said. “Small companies are more responsive.”

Huessenstamm points to a particular brand of printed fabric shorts that was “the hottest thing” last year.

“This year, deadsville,” he said.

There are hundreds of clothing makers trying to crowd onto the racks at Newport Surf and the thousands of other clothing shops around the nation. Newport stocks five major brands and about 20 other labels; sales people from the other clothing makers call regularly trying to persuade Huessenstamm to find rack space for their products.

Because the continued success of his business depends on his customers’ ongoing perception of Newport Surf as a clothing pacesetter, Huessenstamm regards Sakamoto’s research as “absolutely essential to what we do.”

Clothing trends normally run in two-year cycles, a growth year and a peak year, before quickly fading. Research helps manufacturers to anticipate customers’ “evolving demand profile,” Sakamoto said.

Right Decisions Are Vital

With an almost limitless array of clothing lines to choose from, making the right decisions about present and future products is paramount for manufacturer and retailer alike.

“One bad season for a retailer could wipe him out,” Sakamoto said.

By responding to growing trends and thus anticipating the market, Sakamoto thinks wipeouts can be avoided.

But more casualties are inevitable, Sakamoto reckons, because “the beachwear and casual sportswear industries are in their infancy.”

Too often, he believes, clothing companies tend to look no farther than a year ahead, rather than trying to project five years or looking at segments of the market.