Fashion Link: 'Aventures' in Distribution
Peter Jacobson spent 25 years working as an independent sales representative in the Los Angeles fashion industry before adding another entry to his list of job titles: “distributor.”
Jacobson, owner of the Creative Concepts showroom in the California Market Center, formed his distribution company, Fashion Link, in early 2008. The company’s first collection is Aventures des Toile, an art-driven lifestyle collection based in France.
The name Aventures des Toile—French for “adventures of the canvas”—reflects the line’s artistic roots. The collection is based on original artwork, which is reinterpreted in a variety of ways in each group. The company purchases contemporary artwork from international artists. Typically, the company buys about seven paintings each season and secures the rights to reproduce the artwork. Then a design team begins to translate the image to an entire merchandise group. “They play with the artwork,” Jacobson said.
An entire painting, for example, might be re-created in an engineered print, while a detail of the artwork might be used as the pattern on a trim, lining fabric, coordinating contrast fabric or as an embroidered detail.
There are 350 pieces in the collection each season—including coordinating tops, bottoms, dresses, sweaters, hosiery, belts and swimwear. (The parent company also manufactures shoes that work back to each group, but Jacobson opted not to carry shoes.)
Now in its third season in the United States, Aventures des Toile is gaining a following among design-driven boutique retailers. In the first season, Jacobson opened 25 stores; in the second, 40; and by the third, 100.
With wholesale prices ranging from $35 to $350, the collection is carried in California by Harari, On Sunset and M’Attias in Los Angeles and Chic in Oakland.
While some stores buy entire coordinating groups, others select key items from the collection to merchandise back to more-basic product.
“They’re buying it to put under a jacket to make it pop,” Jacobson said. “It’s like wearable art.”
Jacobson had his eye on the line for some time but waited until last year to make his move.
“It took me two years to pluck up the courage to pick it up because it was so different from anything in the market,” he said. “I’d been asked to get into distribution before, but we weren’t set up for it at the time.”
As a distributor, Jacobson takes on the responsibility of purchasing samples, tracking production, selling the line, and clearing customs and taking care of all logistics prior to shipment.
Although Aventures des Toile is relatively new to the United States, the collection has been produced in Europe for seven years, and the parent company has been in business for more than two decades, manufacturing high-tech ski apparel out of a 90,000-square-foot factory near Lyon, France. That technological background finds a home in the Aventures des Toile line, as well. Nanotechnology and sonic printing and seamless construction are used to produce the fashion collection.
For retailers, the appeal of the collection is the artwork.
“It’s all about color and the artwork,” said Harari store manager Shoeleh Farzad, who also assists Harari owner Barbara Keller with the buying for the company’s three retail stores.
Harari has carried the collection for several seasons in its stores in Santa Monica, Calif., and in Arizona, but this season, the company is adding the line to the Beverly Hills store, Farzad said.
“It works for us really well,” she said. “It fits really well, and it’s so happy.”
M’Attias buyer Devora Greenwood compared the line to labels such as John Paul Gaultier or Custo Barcelona in that “everything [in the Aventures des Toile collection] has a twist.”
“It’s for people who dare to stand out,” Greenwood said. “People like the sense of humor, and it’s not that pricy.”
Jacobson recently added a second collection to Fashion Link’s offerings: United Kingdom–based Charli.
“I originally found it at the Who’s Next show [in Paris], and in Las Vegas, one of my customers said, ’You have to look at this line,’” Jacobson said.
The parent company has been in business for 35 years and operates 14 multi-brand stores in Europe and three Charli stores in London, where they can test new styles before rolling them out to their wholesale accounts.
The knit-based line has an easy-lifestyle look with plenty of layering pieces that feature interesting details such as wrap ties, ruching and draping. Produced in England and Portugal, pieces in the collection are wholesale priced around $50. Fashionable fit
Aventures des Toile and Charli make a fashionable fit with the other collections Jacobson represents at Creative Concepts, including Lyon-based fur and leather outerwear line Rizal, Parisian designer Rodika Zanian, European woven resort-based knit line Cannisse and knit collection Zoe Couture. The newest addition to the showroom is Indies, a high-tech contemporary sportswear collection from France under the Gavella company umbrella.
Although the collections are European-designed and, in most cases, European-produced, several companies base their U.S. headquarters in California. Zoe Couture is based in Los Angeles, and Cannisse is in San Diego.
Creative Concepts’ European focus came after years of representing West Coast designers. After pioneering the California look for nearly two decades, Jacobson decided to change tack.
“Twenty-five years ago, I started with California designers,” he said. “When the rest of the world started doing what we were doing, when we started to see the same fabrics and the same styles, it was time to change. Five years ago, we started developing a European customer base.”
Still, the showroom concept remains the same: to showcase collections that have a distinctive look not found in other lines.
“There’s always a percentage of stores who buy European products,” Jacobson said. “After listening to them and other stores about what they were looking for, they said they felt there was a need for newness and freshness.”
Jacobson said he’s planning to continue to look for European collections to represent and distribute.
“I want to stay with product made in Europe and be able to offer it at a competitive price, which we are all sensitive to today,” he said. “As a distributor, it’s a major investment—hundreds of thousands of dollars—in the line. In today’s treacherous economy, you have to be careful. You have to have fabulous product that the customer can afford, but you also have to create excitement, provide customer service, a fabulous environment and a welcoming way to shop.”
For more information about Fashion Link, Aventures des Toile or any of Jacobson’s lines, call (213) 627-4066.
