California Apparel News

After 35 years in the tennis- and golf-apparel business, The LBH Group Ltd. is upping its game.

The Torrance, Calif.–based company has reinvigorated its dusty brand image to court a new generation of female tennis players and golfers who look up to superstar athletes such as Maria Sharapova and Michelle Wie.

The LBH Group put the task of turning Lily’s of Beverly Hills into a lifestyle company in the hands of designer James Sowins, who brings his expertise working at brands such as Skechers-Kitson, Quiksilver, Puma and Mossimo.

“It’s almost like it was a nice old house,” Sowins said of Lily’s of Beverly Hills. “Basically, the foundation was there because it was a 35-year-old brand, but a lot of times with old houses, it was kind of let go.”

Tennis brand Lily’s of Beverly Hills was founded by Beverly Hills socialite and recreational tennis player Lillian Curland in 1973. In 1981, a golf line was added in partnership with avid golfer Evelyn Rosenblum. In 1991, the original founders retired and sold the company to W. John Whitehouse. A year later, Whitehouse hired golf and tennis enthusiast Judith Petraitis as president. Today, The LBH Group Ltd. includes golf line Lily’s of Beverly Hills, tennis brand LBH, the license for Wimbledon women’s tennis apparel and a bottoms line called Fancy Pants.

Karen Cantrell, owner of the 15-year-old Lady Golf shop in Rancho Mirage, Calif., said she carried Lily’s of Beverly Hills “off and on” for the past 10 years. Before the relaunch, the brand was “always a quality product, but the styles were for a woman probably between her 50s and 70s,” Cantrell said. “They didn’t really address how rapidly the women’s market was growing, and, therefore, they fell behind.” Cantrell approximates that her customer base, which ranges from teens to their grandmothers, has grown 60 percent over the past two years.

Sowins zeroed in on what these hip moms and daughters want to wear on the course and revamped Lily’s of Beverly Hills with contemporary styling and athletic functionality suited for a multi-tasking lifestyle.

“Making the line even more contemporary was really going to make it more inviting to the consumer that was buying it,” he said. “If the woman is wearing a Juicy Couture running suit when she’s taking her kids to school and Tory Burch shoes, we needed to make our product really speak to that consumer.”

Since the brand’s relaunch for Spring ’09, it has been sold to more than 50 new accounts. Retailers that had carried the old version of the line, such as Cantrell’s Lady Golf shop, were ecstatic about the new look.

“It’s probably one of the best new American fashions that I’ve seen in quite a while,” said Cantrell, who had a 98 percent sell-through of the line. “It’s really now more transitional sportswear, which makes it a very good value for our customer. It’s very chic, and it’s not over the top.”

Cantrell’s Lady Golf shop carries brands such as Escada Sport, Bogner and Ralph Lauren. She describes the lion’s share of her customers as “very sophisticated and very social.”

“They are members of not only one country club but normally three to five clubs throughout the world,” she said.

Retail price points for Lily’s of Beverly Hills range from $64 to $136.

Sowins designed each group in the golf line around a luxe destination that would fit into the cosmopolitan woman’s lifestyle, such as Monterey, Calif.; the Cote D’Azur; and Carbon Beach in Malibu, Calif. Polo shirts in UV-protective performance fabrics are designed with rounded feminine collars and a slim cut. The tennis line, LBH, employs sporty color blocking and borrows strappy shoulder and back details from swimwear.

For the relaunch, Lily’s of Beverly Hills has focused sales within niche categories, such as country clubs. Sowins said the company plans to grow beyond the niche market in the future.

“The goal is to get into contemporary stores with our sportswear but also to increase tennis [clothing] to be athletic and yoga [clothing] so we can really reach out to a greater channel of distribution,” he said. “That is another area that I see. The change within tennis has been so dramatic that the opportunity within athletic and within yoga, I think, is tremendous.”