Getting Serious : Esprit Founder Susie Tompkins Hopes to Lure Back Fans With Her First Collection of Go-to-Work Wear

Attention all those erstwhile Esprit fanatics who have grown up and into Donna Karan: Susie Tompkins wants you back. She previewed her first signature collection in New York this week, one of several examples of her push to ensure Esprit makes a successful transition to middle age.

After two decades of creating nothing but fun wear, Esprit is venturing into serious go-to-work clothes. Tompkins, Esprit’s creative director and a founder of the company, will turn 50 this August, when her own line targeted for the 25-and-over crowd will appear in stores, including Bullock’s and I. Magnin.

Since June, 1990, when she won a costly corporate custody battle for the company against her ex-husband and then business partner, Doug Tompkins, she has been trying to spark Esprit’s lost effervescence and market share.

The San Francisco-based company has been hit by changing (older) demographics, intense competition for teens (the Gap) and the recession.

Tompkins’ goal, she says, is to capture the legions of grown-ups who wore Esprit as teens but now wear second-tier designer lines such as DKNY and Anne Klein II. The company remains committed to juniors with its Esprit de Corp. label, but has spent more than $5 million to develop the new Susie Tompkins division.

Although her name is on the label, Tompkins initially was reluctant to enter this arena: “When I came back into the company I was under pressure to do this line, but I never thought of myself as a designer in that way,” she says. “I struggled with the concept . . . wasn’t there any other name? But given the strong things that I feel, it’s the right thing to do, a natural evolution.”

The line is as much a crusade as it is a collection. Tompkins is eager to make in-store appearances in the fall when she can talk to consumers about women’s issues, homelessness, AIDS, the need to car-pool. When describing her clothing line she uses adjectives such as “responsible, sympathetic, sensible, gentle and socially conscious.”

As with Esprit, Tompkins created unexpected mixtures of prints (i.e. stripes with dots) and fabrics. The line is 10% wool and silk, but Tompkins is also a devotee of low-maintenance polyester.

Prices have been set below those of such fashion labels as DKNY because Tompkins believes there is a market for clothing priced $300 and less.

Many of the 160 pieces in her initial collection are evocative of the 1940s, the era, Tompkins believes, when women were their most confident and elegant.

“These clothes are not consumed with fashion, there is nothing invented, but restyled,” Tompkins says.

“There are some sensual, not sexy, looks for the ‘90s woman, but it’s discreet. These clothes are not for someone who wants to say, ‘Look at me I just bought new clothes today.’ It’s not country, it’s not hard urban, it’s about being sympathetic and having a conscience.”

Esprit’s persona during the recent era has taken a dramatic turn. During the 1980s, Doug Tompkins’ penchant for architecture and outdoor adventures was reflected in almost everything the company did. He built lavish stores and installed a park at company headquarters. Today, Susie has converted part of the park into an organic garden where former inmates from Bay Area prisons plant vegetables and flowers to sell.

The most controversial move was the company’s ad campaign last fall, in which teen-agers discussed how they would change the world. Many retailers saw the ads--and their focus on social issues--as anti-fashion and were outraged.

Joe Levy, CEO of Gottschalk’s, the fast-growing department store chain based in Fresno, said, “Susie is trying to sell her world as she sees it, but maybe that’s not the real world. I don’t know if it will sell that well in Fresno or Iowa.”

But Tompkins believes in marrying consciousness to a commercial endeavor. The big payoff, she acknowledges, might be down the line. “We have already seen people being reluctant to spend money on luxuries and being more sympathetic. The 1960s didn’t start out that way and it will take until the middle to later part of the ‘90s for this movement to kick in.”