PJ Salvage Launches New Contemporary Division
For 14 years now, PJ Salvage’s playful novelty-print pajama sets and fashion sleepwear have spoken to the young and girly customer in the sleepwear section of specialty stores and better department stores.
When the Irvine, Calif.–based brand saw all the vibrant energy over in the contemporary-clothing side of the retail floor, founder Peter Burke decided to develop a new division of PJ Salvage to target that more mature and sophisticated customer.
“The majority of sleepwear in the past has been traditional. We’ve always tried to separate ourselves from the pack by being more fashion-forward,” Burke said.
Three years ago, Burke launched beachy lifestyle coverups such as tunics and dresses as part of PJ Salvage’s lineup. This division will be expanded with a new line of contemporary knits and wovens to hit stores for summer 2012.
“Based on the success of that, we’re continuing the growth of our product line into contemporary knits and wovens. We really see PJ Salvage as a [bigger] brand as opposed to just a sleepwear, loungewear brand,” Burke said.
PJ Salvage’s sleepwear offerings have, likewise, grown in maturity. In addition to the cute animal, heart and cupcake prints that customers expect from the brand, more groupings feature a softer color palette and ready-to-wear trends in the design.
For example, hemlines on tops curve shorter in the front and drape longer on the sides. Henley nightshirts have a ready-to-wear shape in soft, cotton/Modal knit fabric and feminine, muted baby pinks, blues and lavender sleepwear hues. The groupings using better fabrications and sophisticated styling will be “slightly higher” in price than the current wholesale price points of $16.50 to $22.50 for tops and $18.50 to $26.50 for chemises.
As the design of the collection further develops, PJ Salvage will introduce new retail fixtures for boutiques to display the brand concept. The first build-out is slated to hit “strategically placed stores” for holiday 2011. The shop-in-shop concept is a wood closet-like hanging and shelving system available in three different sizes. Flexible pieces can be customized, based on an individual retailer’s needs.
Just in time for the holiday season, a new basic in-stock program will display PJ Salvage’s basics—T-shirts, tank tops, shorts, pants andchemises—packaged in individual boxes in a neat wooden countertop display.
“I think that will certainly generate extra business for us,” Burke said. —Rhea Cortado
