Show Is Where Action Is in Sports’ Fashions : Retailing: Sports Retailers Trade Expo makes first appearance in San Diego, showcasing fashion trends.

When volleyball star Steve Timmons goes for a spike, he concentrates on footwork, arm swing and the final approach. But when Timmons markets his Redsand line of sports and beach apparel, he concentrates on quality designs and top-notch production. He also makes sure that the Vista-based Redsand has an eye-catching display at the Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo, an industry show that boasts the nation’s largest collection of apparel for surfing, skating, skiing and snow-boarding.

The 10th annual fall expo, which is being held in San Diego after nine years in Long Beach, opens today at the San Diego Convention Center. The trade exposition, which is not open to the public, is generally regarded as the premiere trade exposition in the $1-billion-a-year surf and action-wear industry.

The show might play an even more important role this year, as manufacturers and retailers cope with the possibility of a recession.

Manufacturers “can’t pretend that retail is as good as it was” before fears of a recession surfaced, said Kathy Browning, publisher of Action Sports Retailer, a South Laguna-based magazine that sponsors the show. “We’ve definitely felt (a slowdown in growth) . . . but people will still go on vacation; they’ll still buy products that relate to the active-wear industry.

“Retail is not as good as it has been in the past but (the active-wear segment) has done better than most,” Browning said.

Retail store owners, including Ray Hamel, co-owner of Hamel’s Action Center in Mission Beach, use the annual fall show to peek into the future and see what fashion and sporting goods trends will be catching consumers’ eyes during the upcoming summer season.

“The sign in our store says that the ‘trends start here,’ ” Hamel said. “But this show is really the way to stay ahead of things. The (products on) display is mind-boggling.”

The show that began 10 years ago in Long Beach now plays an increasingly important role in the industry.

Action-wear manufacturers must attend to exhibit, said Jim Austin, a co-owner, with Timmons, of Redsand, which will report about $5 million in revenue this year. “This industry is an image industry, and this show is where you show off your image. The (expo) has a corner on the (active-wear) market.”

East Coast buyers might attend a sister show in Atlantic City or a competing show in Florida, but “if you’re in the womens-wear business or the surfboard accessory business, this show really is a must,” said John Bernards, chief operating officer for Tustin-based Ocean Pacific Sunwear.

More than 900 companies will exhibit their wares at nearly 2,000 booths, more than double the number of booths that could be squeezed into Long Beach’s convention facility, according to Patricia Sullivan, managing editor of Action Sports Retailer.

Crews have dumped tons of sand on the exhibition center’s top floor to create a volleyball court where Olympic and pro-volleyball players--including Timmons, M.V.P. of the U.S.’s 1984 Olympic team--will compete. On Monday, workers were completing work on an 11-feet-tall skateboard ramp where teams sponsored by skateboard manufacturers will compete. Rollerblade exhibitions will take place on another set of ramps that includes a dance floor.

But the emphasis among clothing manufacturers remains on beautiful models who will be wearing next summer’s fashions, according to long-time show participants.

“It seems like every pretty girl who was at the beach this summer will be there modeling,” Hamel said. “I got a lot of calls from people who needed models for exhibits. They all wanted contestants from the (Hamel-sponsored) Miss Mission Beach contest.”

The models and the scores of eye-catching exhibits are designed to capture the attention of apparel buyers from surf shops to department stores. But the models won’t be decked out in the neons and florescents that have dominated beach and surf-wear lines in recent years.

The screaming pinks, greens and yellows are being replaced by a rainbow of more natural blues, greens, and purples that might seem at home on a tropical island, industry spokesmen said.

Apparel manufacturers, including Ocean Pacific Sunwear and San Diego-based Life’s a Beach Inc., linked the move away from bright but unnatural Day-Glo colors to the nation’s growing awareness of the environment. Surfers, swimmers, volleyball players and other sports- and health-minded people feel “more comfortable” with the blues, greens and other natural colors, Sullivan said.

The move to natural colors is being welcomed by manufacturers, who have, for the past two years, been trying to recast Day-Glo colors as “accents” to more-natural colors.

“Two years ago, everything that we did was in bright colors,” Redsand’s Austin said. “We were forced into neon when everyone else went . . . but now we’re stoked; we’re getting back to some good colors . . . we’ll be real serious into blue, jades, turquoise, purple.”

“Neon is history” at San Diego-based Life’s A Beach Inc., said company President Jeff Theodosakis. “We tried to quit (Day-Glo) two years ago but the people wanted it back too bad so we had to bring it back.”

Life’s A Beach will replace Day-Glo colors with two different color schemes. Its main line of clothing will feature “basic bright” colors, including turquoise, blue, yellow and red, Theodosakis said. An “underground” line, which is aimed largely at skateboarders, “will be drab olives and muted colors, like grays and blues,” Theodosakis said.

Life’s A Beach, which has exhibited at the show since the company’s s founding six years ago, won’t participate in this fall’s exposition. In a move that Theodosakis acknowledged as unusual, Life’s A Beach is funneling those marketing dollars into a campaign that focuses on a recently completed surfing contest sponsored by the company. Life’s A Beach recently sent its customers a video that details the company’s involvement in the surfing contest.

Theodosakis acknowledged that, in the competitive surf- and active-wear industry, “presence is important at this show . . . there are people who are going to be asking questions, no doubt,” about why the company is absent.

While companies at the exposition will use the San Diego show to unveil their newest apparel and sporting goods products, San Diego-based Hang Ten, which helped to found the surf-clothing industry more than 20 years ago, is using the show to attempt a comeback.

Hang Ten, which has remained very active in the international market and has continued to license a women’s clothing line in the U.S., has been almost invisible in the domestic men’s and boys’ market. But the company is “ready to reclaim its old turf as a major player” in the hotly contested men’s and boys’ segment of the industry, a spokeswoman said.

However, some competitors questioned whether today’s youth will be attracted to Hang Ten, a brand that built a strong and loyal following more than 20 years ago with its apparel that bore the then-familiar pair of footprints.