Zovo Loungewear Launches Ready-to-Wear
Zovo, the Seattle-based retailer and manufacturer of lingerie and loungewear, plans to introduce Ready-to-Wear, another building block to its growing business, at the upcoming Feb. 12–15 run of the Lingerie Americas trade show in Las Vegas. While many of Zovo’s cotton knit loungewear pants and underpinning tops are already worn outside of the home, the company makes it official with the launch of a group of Ready-to- Wear tops.
To help the transition of Zovo loungewear toward true Readyto- Wear, the company recently hired a new head designer. Jean Marie Benz previously worked as the women’s design director of Indigo Palms by TommyBahama.
Zovo founder and Vice President of Sales and Merchandising Victoria Roberts elaborated that Benz was the perfect choice because she “is our customer. hellip; She really gets that women that we’re selling to want to look great and feel great, and her work reflected that.”
Zovo lingerie debuted February 2007 and targets women between 35 and 60 years old looking for sophisticated, age-appropriate and stylish underpinnings in natural cotton, silk and cashmere fabrications.
Engle Saez, president and chief executive officer of Zovo, said the addition of Readyto- Wear is another step toward Zovo’s bigpicture growth plan to build the company into a lifestyle brand that will include a wholesale business and multiple retail stores. Saez, whose previous experience includes serving as senior vice president of marketing and category management at Starbucks Coffee Co. and chief marketing officer at Eddie Bauer Inc., said he and Roberts started Zovo because they saw an opportunity in retail and wholesale products that would cater to the Baby Boomer customer.
“There’s a pretty wide distance between the traditional mom-and-pop lingerie boutiques and the department stores,” Saez said. “I think they both do a good job of servicing customers.”
But Saez said there’s a missing niche that can be filled by stores such as Zovo’s own in Seattle, which sells brands including Chantelle, Huit and Leigh Bantivoglio.
“Somewhere in that middle is a growing, evolving opportunity like what we have at Zovo lingerie,” he said.
On the wholesale lingerie side, Saez said Zovo is building on the line’s core groups of underwear and underpinnings in Egyptian mercerized cotton. “Marketing can help you bring a customer to trial one time, but it’s the product that brings the customer back to repeat business,” Saez said. —Rhea Cortado
