Any company expanding in WNY, has to be good news.
Cap firm expands, adds clothing line
New Era throws its hat into the fashion ring
New Era Cap Co., the Buffalo-based maker of baseball caps, is in the midst of a five-year plan that calls for expanding the private company into a worldwide fashion brand.
The 87-year-old company that has helped catapult the baseball hat from major league fields to the world of urban music and fashion, plans to double in size and revenues by expanding more into Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, building more company stores and debuting a line of clothing.
New Era just opened its third store, in London, to complement stores in Buffalo and New York City. Stores are planned for Atlanta and Toronto this summer and, later in the year, Los Angeles. More stores are planned, and the company just opened an office in Hong Kong.
“We think that the time is right to go out and launch a heritage sports offering,” said CEO Chris Koch, speaking on the phone last week as he headed to London to celebrate the store opening there. “Everyone feels they want to see clothes from New Era.”
The company has been raising its profile — locally and nationally — with its move to new headquarters on Delaware Avenue and with a series of television ads directed by Spike Lee featuring Major League Baseball players.
Behind the scenes, it has been carrying out its global expansion plans.
More than 10,000 chain stores and boutiques — such as Hat World/Lids, Foot Locker and SneakerVilla — in the United States, Europe, Japan and South America now carry New Era hats.
The company now sells about 34 million hats a year. Company officials are tightlipped about how much money New Era makes abroad, but the percentage of overall revenue from outside the United States is approaching 20 percent.
Currently, the domestic market is delivering a “mature” 10 percent growth rate, Koch said, while the growth internationally is closer to 20 percent.
As the company moves into other parts of the world, where baseball may not have the same allure, it hopes for help from its own brand of clothes. Salespeople from around the world have been visiting the company to see its new offerings.
New Era is making lettered jackets, track suits and shirts with cityscape silhouettes and argyle patterns, said Koch. The original launch of the clothing line was canceled last year when factory samples were deemed substandard.
Summer is the season when salespeople in the apparel trade sell to retail store clients so there will be new styles on the racks for the spring shopping season of February, March and April.
New Era says it’s ready, with five new factories under contract to make the clothes designed by some of the company’s 50 to 60 hat designers in Buffalo, California and England. Styles also have come from a new apparel unit, charged with coordinating it all, with seven staff members in an office near New York City.
“We’re keeping our finger on the pulse . . . We want to be closer to where it’s all happening,” said Christine Konyak- Parker, director of the apparel unit in Stanhope, N.J. “We are becoming a fashion icon with our head wear. . . . Our goal is to reach a broader market, just like the head wear.”
Clothes, including new gilded- style skateboard shoes, are a critical part of the global expansion, said Gerry Matos, senior vice president of marketing.
“In the United States we are very closely tied to Major League Baseball,” he said of New Era’s reputation. “Internationally, because baseball is less relevant, it is a lifestyles brand. Apparel may come easier to us in other markets. . . . I think the growth potential in those markets is very strong. . . . We certainly think that the apparel line will be broadly appealing around the globe.”
“It has become a very meaningful part of our business,” Matos continued, adding that international sales were only in the single digits four years ago. Now: “It is in double digits and growing significantly,” he said.
Lately, New Era’s business has been particularly good in Mexico and Latin America. “Over the last three years, we’ve pretty much doubled the business,” he said. “Next year again, we should probably experience very significant growth.”
The flexibility needed for global expansion has been seen earlier in the company’s history. Koch’s great-grandfather, Ehrhardt, started the company, making fedoras and “newsboy” hats. The company adapted when the felt hats went out of fashion. Koch’s grandfather, Harold, shifted to making baseball hats, which led to its 70- year association with Major League Baseball.
Earlier this month, 100 salespeople and managers came from North America, Hong Kong and London to preview the new clothing line along with the spring collection of hats.
The New Era sales team will work to get some of the company’s 3,000 retail store clients, which own some 10,000 stores, to order from the first lineup of options — shirts — intended for men 18 to 34 years old.
The shirts come in two general styles with fire-escape patterns, lime-green skyscraper silhouettes and fists showing “New Era” spelled out on knuckles.
For a more casual suburban, or “college,” look, there are plain, blue cotton pique and yellow striped polo shirts. A baseball jacket with “New Era” written in a script similar to the kind the New York Yankees use also is being sold.
Pricier track suits, hooded sweat shirts, with finer detail and better fabric — perhaps cashmere — will be added to the mix by fall.
Shoppers at New Era’s Buffalo store last week were focused on hats, not clothes.
From a small, early sampling of T-shirts that went on the New Era store racks in April, a pirate skull with a silver eye patch has been a top seller.
Shopper Luke Zinn, visiting his brother in Buffalo, said he had come in for a simple cap in moisture-wicking fabric, also new this spring, with the classic St. Louis Cardinals monogram. He couldn’t find them at home in St. Louis.
“Everywhere I went, they were out of them,” he said. “I do see they have shirts, but I’m not interested.”
Liz Giovino of Buffalo paused to look the shirts over while a friend shopped for caps. “I think it’s a good idea,” she said of the clothes. “Normally, you’ll get the hat and then you’ll have to go to the mall to get the shirt.”
mkearns@buffnews.com
Prev
Linear Mode
