California Apparel News

Lyric Culture hopes to make cash registers ring with the launch of its ultra-premium-jeans collection

The market for $650 jeans may be ridiculously tiny or completely saturated, depending on your point of view, but that’s exactly where Lyric Culture is positioning itself.

One of the more ambitious and original denim launches in some time, the West Hollywood, Calif.–based company has secured the rights to dozens of legendary song lyrics, which are used as embellishments on the outside of jeans and sportswear and are also placed more discreetly on the inside of apparel. Lyric Culture (parent company: Lyric Jeans) was founded by Hanna Rochelle Schmieder, a singer-songwriter (hanna-music.com) who comes from a family of “hardcore classical musicians” and who grew up around legendary violinists Jascha Heifetz and Isaac Stern before launching a career as a performer and marketer in the music industry.

California Apparel News caught up with Schmieder to discuss Lyric Culture’s inspired concept, marketing strategy, and unusually ample funding.

CAN: How did Lyric Culture begin?

HRS: I’m a singer/songwriter and recording artist, and I’ve always designed my own stage costumes. I was looking for good revenue streams for musicians, because it’s not enough anymore to just make an album. There are certain songs, like “Born to Be Wild” and “American Pie,” where the songs are far more famous than the bands.

Lyric Culture happened by accident in a recording studio last summer. I was wearing a pair of jeans that I had tricked out with lyrics from Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry.” People in the music business started telling me this is a really cool thing. My business partner and I started developing the idea and making samples, not knowing how huge this thing was going to get, and a guy who had taken a lot of clothing companies public said, “This is a really hot idea. We can get serious funding for this.”

In the meantime, I started going around to my record industry contacts and getting the rights, and we have deals in place with all five major record companies and the big independents as well. I approached them as an artist, not as a merchandiser trying to make a quick buck.

CAN: Tell us about the first collection.

HRS: We will be doing men’s, but the initial launch is women’s. It’s called the Revolution Collection, and it’s inspired by lyrics from the late ’60s and early ’70s. I want people to wear what they feel, to wear their heart on their sleeve. There are a lot of great words out there that may have never been famous, and we’re going to be incorporating those as well.

And once we get this line up and running and it’s doing really well, I plan to launch a new artist’s career with each season.

CAN: How many products will there be in the first season?

HRS: There are 15 songs, and it’s not just jeans and T-shirts. It’s really a lifestyle brand, so the collection also includes belts, leather jackets, and skirts and dresses.

On certain jeans, like David Bowie’s “Rebel, Rebel,” the words are written on a pink snakeskin stripe going down the side. Others look like a scribble, and a lot of our clothes have the lyrics written on the inside. All the songwriters and record companies get a royalty from every unit sold.

CAN: Who’s your lead designer?

HRS: I’m the creative director, and we have a team of people here. Sandy Cohen, of Lucky Brands, is a consultant. He’s been directing us as to what works in the market.

CAN: What’s the price range of the collection?

HRS: T-shirts will retail from $80 to $100. Belts will be around $300, basic jeans with nothing on them but our own lyrics on the inside will start at $185. The more tricked-out jeans will go for about $650.

CAN: Your price points certainly suggest this isn’t a gimmick but a small, exclusive collection—not something destined for mass merchandisers.

HRS: In the future, we do plan to take it to mass, but I don’t think it’s a gimmick the way it’s designed. A lot of the lyrics are hidden, and at the end of the day, our jeans have to fit the best.

I’m the target demographic for these jeans: I’m 29; all my friends are in their 20s or 30s— they’re stylists, publicists, singers, and actresses. These are the people who spend $300 on a pair of jeans. I have to wake up every morning and live with myself if I don’t want to wear my Lyric Jeans. I have to think, “Why do I want to wear my Serfontaine, True Religion or Seven jeans today?” There’s something fundamentally wrong with that if I perceive that someone else’s jeans are better than mine.

A lot of designers and manufacturers of jeans are men in their 40s and 50s, and they can get up in the morning and throw on whatever they want—they’re not the target market for their product.

CAN: Who will make the jeans?

HRS: We’re working with a company called American Garment Sewing and a couple of other contractors in downtown L.A. But all of our design work is done in West Hollywood. We have a really cute converted mansion that we turned into a design studio, because if we’re going to be designing rock ’n’ roll clothes, we have to do it in a place where a rock star would live. There’s no creative inspiration for me in Vernon or Huntington Park.

CAN: Please describe the denim fabric, washes, and styling?

HRS: It’s all Italian denim. There are three styles of jeans, called Harmony, Melody, and Rhythm. The Harmony jean is a basic boot-cut, because most women look better in a basic boot. The Melody is a skinny jean with a zipper on the pantleg. When you close it, you can’t tell the zipper is there, but since not everyone looks good in a pencil jean, you can open it up for a little flare. The Rhythm jean is what I call the motorcyle-pocket jean—it has two cool flash pockets on the back and some stitching that gives your bum a little lift.

Our pockets are rounded around the edges to give you a little more curve in the bum.

We also have hot shorts and miniskirts in denim and leather.

CAN: Where will the line be sold?

HRS: We’re planning it for high-end specialty stores and department stores. We can’t announce who just yet. We’re planning the big launch for Fall ’07, but there will some limited stuff in stores by Spring.

Before the holiday season we plan to launch a new website [currently it’s lyricjeans.com], with an e-store. The things we’ll be selling online will be exclusive; we won’t be selling the same things to retailers.

CAN: You’re obviously well funded. Where has the funding primarily come from?

HRS: Private, silent investors. But we're also a publicly traded company now [OTC: LYJN.PK]. It's a penny stock on the pink sheets.

CAN: How are you planning the market the brand?

HRS: We recently did an album release party fr the band America. One of their songs was an inspiration for our first collection, so we're hosting their latest release party with Sony, who is putting information about our line inside the CD jacket, and we're going to have [the album] on our handtag, so there's a cross promotion.

Brook Burke already wore one of our leather quot;Let It Bequot; [by the Beatles] outfits on quot;Rock Star: Supernova,quot; so we haven't even officially launched and it's already getting buzz. And Kelly Clarkson wore one of our T-shirts to a NASCAR event. But we're being really selective. The celebrity has to really be connected to music.

So, marketing is all those kinds of promotions—publicity, tie-ins, celebrities, and we’re going to be doing a lot of product placement in films.

CAN: Do you feel like a late arrival into the premium-denim market? Right now is the time of the shakeout, when so many smaller players are folding.

HRS: We’re not primarily denim. We’re a lifestyle brand. I don’t consider True Religion or Seven a direct competitor of ours, because we’re based on a lifestyle of music, and if you love music you’re going to be wearing our brand. This isn’t like some other brands who claim to be rock ’n’ roll, but there’s nothing really rock ’n’ roll about them.