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LOS ANGELES The action sports industry is trying to cater to an older, savvier customer who inhabits the void between juniors and contemporary sportswear.
Quiksilver, Matix and Billabong are marketing higher-priced labels that exude a streetwise vibe with attention to better fabrics and stylistic details that would be out of reach for the price-conscious customers of their core businesses. All the labels hope to move beyond skate, surf and snow retailers and land their wares in boutiques.
Unlike its junior label Roxy, Quiksilver's new venture, which is launching this fall with 91 styles, will be sold under the parent brand to a young contemporary customer. Matix offers only 10 styles in its secondary line called White Label. Billabong's Designer's Closet label makes its first shipment of eight styles for the summer season in April.
The customer is personified by actress Sanoe Lake, a Hawaiian surfer girl who lives in this sprawling metropolis, promotes her movies at the Sundance Film Festival, sits in the front row at Los Angeles Fashion Week and needs a wardrobe to match her lifestyle. Billabong hired her as a spokesmodel to introduce Designer's Closet.
Lake has her pick of a leotard prettified with raw-edge ruffles, high-waisted jeans that make her legs look flatteringly long, a silk scarf shimmering in a rainbow of Lurex stripes and a strapless dress printed with a wacky combination of hand-drawn roses and bicycle tire marks.
It is "stuff that I can mix and match to wear when I go to a red-carpet event or go out," Lake said. A fan of BCBG, Marc Jacobs and Chanel accessories, she said...