Expo Shows a New Wave of Activewear
Although most people have never heard of it, the Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo is the world’s best indoor beach party. Twice each year for three days, surf, beach volleyball, skateboarding, rollerskating and windsailing stars, manufacturers and retailers pack the Long Beach Convention Center, preview the upcoming season’s wares and generally have a fine old time.
This year, however, retail activist Peter Glen’s opening seminar undercut the party atmosphere. In it, he warned the industry of the dangers of complacency and a failure to assume social responsibility in the face of environmental destruction, AIDS, homelessness and corporate takeovers.
Even the success of the industry poses a problem, he said. Surf shops are now fixtures throughout the Midwest, Japan and Europe. New York department stores, such as Macy’s, have profitable beach boutiques, and mainstream trade magazines, such as Women’s Wear Daily, photograph neon activewear.
These big boys have so much money, Glen continued, that they no longer need California to “do California.” The only way the homegrown companies can survive, he concluded, is to become more authentic, more visionary and more creative.
A walk through the exhibition hall validated his message. On the one hand, rows of manufacturers hawked essentially interchangeable lines of T-shirts, bathing suits and shorts with little flair or originality. But there were also a handful of companies that displayed the imagination, enthusiasm and sense of purpose that Glen believes the times demand.
The Powell Corp., a leading skateboard company, for instance, cleverly satirized the entire proceedings by taking their orders inside a makeshift World War II bunker. They brought in a real tank, built a fence covered with artificial dried brown “leaves,” shot photographs of models in ‘40s pinup style and offered visitors cold mineral waters. Just as Glen had predicted, their salespeople, clad in military khaki, were beseiged by hordes of buyers, friends and curiousity-seekers responding to the witty presentation.
Jimmy’Z took an entirely different approach. Unlike most of the other leading activewear companies, it makes no bones about bypassing the hardcore surfer and skater for the hip Barney’s or Fred Segal customer.
“Our clothes are contemporary street sportswear that blend California life style and art, and that just happen to have beach origins,” Sepp Donahower, the company’s co-founder, says.
Their booth reflected that difference. To get even a glimpse of their clothes, one had to pass through a wall of hanging black rubber Jimmy’Z banners into a dark, cavelike room. Inside were tables, a series of stark black platforms for the fashion show and a disc jockey who spun eclectic, intelligent dance music.
The clothing was equally distinctive. In the midst of an exhibition hall full of bright colors, Jimmy’Z featured blacks, whites, grays and blues, frequently in solids or free-form prints, sometimes on or with denim. The neon that was used was done so sparingly and to best effect in a unique neon plaid short.
While Jimmy’Z describes itself as “real clothes for real people,” Body Glove actively pursues the hard-core market. “We made our name for the past 35 years with wet suits,” Greg Licht, national sales manager, says “and we have no intention of abandoning them now.”
Two years ago, they broadened that appeal considerably by introducing the first woman’s neoprene bathing suits accented by the then-unfamiliar hot pinks, greens and yellows. Judging from this season’s progressive collection and fever-pitched fashion show, their position is even stronger this year.
With an unmatched flair for mixing fabrics, they brought out volley shorts made of Tactel, a fast-drying fabric, with neoprene at the waist; women’s one-piece bathing suits with strategically located clear plastic squares; tie-dyed Lycra and lace tops, and hot pink or green high heels with the black-and-yellow Body Glove logo stamped on the shoe. It is as haute as beach couture gets and was greeted with a frenzy by buyers at the booth.
It was not just these companies but the organizers of the expo itself who rose to Glen’s challenge. On the first night of the show, they hosted a fund-raiser for the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to beach preservation, and presented them with a $5,000 donation.
“We realized that the industry needs only two conditions to thrive: a clean environment and access to good beaches,” Brad Bonhall, editor of Action Sports Retailer magazine, says. “The Surfrider Foundation has been working for exactly these goals for a number of years, and we thought we should help.
“In retrospect,” he continues, “we also were inspired by working with Peter Glen. His philosophy is to ‘just do it.’ So we did.”
