Impressions - Sports Fan Retailer - June 2015 - 23

and the cut-off shorts make a big comeback," says Audrey Joslin, accounts manager at OCJ Apparel. "So we came out
with a high-rise [shorts style] last year
with our denim, and we haven't changed
our fabric or our fit at all because we manufactured it so perfectly and people love it
so much that we don't want to change it."
OCJ Apparel creates a wide variety of
apparel, including khaki shorts, T-shirts
and tops, and caters exclusively to the
collegiate market. But one quick trip to
its website and it's apparent that jeans
are the company's focal point.
"Our denim is really popular because
of the fit," Joslin says. "Women and denim have always had complicated relationships, I think. We've managed to
manufacture a pant that is so comfortable and fits so well that someone will
buy it, try it on and keep coming back
because of the comfort of the pants."
Denim also is ideal for licensed sports
apparel because the fabric matches virtually all team colors, and pants offer an
easy team logo placement spot: directly
on the back pocket.
LOGO-PLACEMENT TRENDS
One of the more difficult decisions
manufacturers have to make when it
comes to licensed sports apparel is where
to put the logo. If this all-important
element isn't in a tasteful, easily visible
location, it may be ignored by customers at retail.
Even though denim jeans offer the
back pocket as the ideal logo-placement
location, Joslin says, OCJ Apparel exercises more creative freedom when it
comes to its tops. And speaking of such
garments, manufacturers have found
that front-facing logos garner more interest than those on the back or sides.
"We stick to the fronts [for logo placement]," Becker says. "We do back prints
for logos as well, but we don't find them
nearly as popular as doing a full-front
[placement]."
And while women's garments can
sometimes get away with more creativity and pizzazz than those for men, suppliers say, the latter - especially pants
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- can provide more of a challenge in
finding the right balance between flashy
and subtlety.
With menswear, a good rule of thumb
with logos is to keep it simple. While a
pocket-covering logo for women is widely
accepted, manufacturers can't use similar
tactics to sell men's clothing. A blend of
subtlety and an unmistakable display of
school pride for menswear is critical to
the apparel's in-store sales success.
"For the men, it's all about keeping things a little more simplistic,
I think," Joslin says. "If we were to
create a men's pant with a pocket
the size that it is on a women's pant,
I don't know if we'd ever sell a single
one. It's all about making sure that those
pants display the school pride."
COLOR INSIDE THE LINES
There's really one simple rule when it
comes to apparel colors in this business: The team's colors are paramount.
It seems like a no-brainer, but apparel
manufacturers often incorporate colors
such as black and silver - or even pastel
versions of team colors - to try to sell
to a niche market.
"In the sports licensing world, the
colors really relate directly to the team,"
Pearl says. "It's very hard to deviate from
that and still get interest from buyers. As
a fashion-forward brand, we've tried to
introduce some fashion colors. In concept, of course, a heather gray is always
a staple for any team, no matter what
[its] colors are. But venturing out too
far away from that - even converting
a team color to a pastel version - is really not what we see [having] the best
return for us."
OCJ has experimented with black
and white team apparel in the past, but
decided that results would be better if
more color was incorporated into its
clothing lines.
"This year we're adding a lot more color
to our tops," Joslin says. "Last year, we just
did black and white when we launched
our tops line. People were into the black
and white and just being really chic, but
you'll see a lot more color this year."

Details that add softness, such as mesh
inserts, constitute a big trend at the retail level.
June 2015 23

Impressions - Sports Fan Retailer - June 2015

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