Reef to Launch Women's Categories
For Spring 2008, San Diego–based surf brand Reef will debut its first collection of women’s sportswear, swimsuits and closed-toe shoes. The brand, which originally hailed from Brazil, has women’s swim licenses in South America, Europe and Australia and produces a line of women’s bags and sandals in the United States, but it has never offered women’s apparel.
“We’re all pretty excited,” said Lindy Williams, Reef’s girls’ marketing manager. “It is something retailers have been asking us for for a long time.” Sportswear will be designed by Karin Trevino, who designed knit and woven tops for Roxy and acted as director of Lost’s girls’ brand. Swimwear will be designed by veteran bikini designer Fran Carvalho, who designed Reef’s swimsuits for the brand’s Brazilian licensee. The recent strength of the juniors and young contemporary markets in the surf-and-skate arena was a big factor in Reef venturing into this unfamiliar territory, Trevino said.
Targeting young women aged 17 to 22, the Reef brand will avoid the ubiquitous “California girl” vibe in favor of a more exotic, world-traveler aesthetic, Williams said. “Our girl will still be surf and beach, but she’s more sophisticated and exotic,” she said. “We don’t want to come to market with something that is already out there. Our heritage is exotic, and we want to touch upon that. Nothing ’bubble gum’ here.” Trevino added she designs “not for the girl who gets up at 5 a.m. to surf,” but for a girl who appreciates surf’s active lifestyle.
Carvalho, who used to design Reef’s line of women’s sandals, said she and Trevino design the sportswear and swim lines side by side, so their colorways, themes and prints tend to overlap.
The swim line will feature 10 groups of three or four bikinis. Modified spots, stripes, animal prints, and vintage Hawaiian and gold themes will be key to the swim line, which will be manufactured in Brazil from Brazilian Lycrablend fabrics. Every bikini will be offered in two cuts—the more-generous but not quite full-coverage Universal cut and the sexier Brazilian cut. “Full-coverage bikinis are not authentic to the Brazilian heritage of the brand,” Carvalho said, but she added that her Brazilian bikinis are not as skimpy as the tiny bikinis seen on the Reef Girls in the brand’s ads or at trade shows. Several one-piece bathing suits and dress-style coverups round out the swim offerings.
The Reef sportswear line will be heavy on sundresses for its Spring debut, Trevino said, but will include fleece, T-shirts, denim, knit tops and casual bottoms for a total of about 90 pieces. “It will be easy to wear, but it will look valuable because of the embellishments, prints and details we’re using,” she said. Reef will design new sportswear collections four seasons per year and deliver three or four times per season.
When it debuts early next year, complete with its own variation of the Reef logo, the women’s line will focus its retail efforts in core surf and skate shops. “Our customer is sophisticated, but does not refer to shops that sell both surf and skate she is still someone who wants to shop at a surf shop and not pay a boutique price,” Williams said. Wholesale prices for the line are not available yet but will be competitive, the designer said. To help spotlight the new line, Reef will build a new booth for its women’s offerings and send the line to surf, skate and swim tradeshows, including the Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo, the Miami Swim Show and the Bread & Butter show in Barcelona, Spain.
