July 2007

Get Into the Groove

By Betsy Cummings

Some time ago, Barb Burcham, owner of Ad-Specialties & More Ltd. in Norman, OK, called the clothing company Sean John to place an order. That’s the line created by rap impresario Sean Puffy (P. Diddy, if you prefer) Combs – a line the entertainment mogul says is “fashion forward clothing” with an “urban sensibility.”

It all sounded good to Burcham. But after days of calling to purchase shirts for a client, it was “all to no avail,” she says. “To this day they’ve never returned a call, even though they knew we were looking for a reasonable order of one type of shirt, blank, all the same size.”

The promotional products market, it seems isn’t on the radar of Sean John. Or, at least not yet. But, if trends in the market are any indication, that may soon change.

A growing market
In Los Angeles, more than 2,800 miles away from Sean John’s Manhattan flagship store, rap-inspired street wear, and a growing urban clothing aesthetic, is picking up steam at Red Cloud Promotions, says Cloud Morrison, president, whose clients purchasing urban wear are largely in the entertainment business. “It’s ridiculous the amount of hoodies” and ribbed tank tops she sells, Morrison says. “There’s a huge market for that.”

Urban Wear Options Here are some great urban wearables.
a. From Alternative Apparel, an inside out, crew men’s T-shirt (AA5005). Made of 50s combed ring-spun jersey, 100% cotton. Special features: piece dyed, lightweight fabric, modern cut, garment washed and no shrinkage. Reader Service #157 b. From Royal Apparel, a ladies’ rib tank top (RA4001-2XL-1) side seamed for contoured body fit. Made of super soft 6 oz., 30/1 combed ring-spun cotton baby 2 x 1 rib. Reader Service #147 c. From Alternative Apparel, a wool blend soft structured fedora cap (AH65). Features include center dent, roll brim, custom satin printed inner lining and soft elastic sweatband. Reader Service #157 d. From Kavio, a junior short sleeve camo jersey baby tee (0281-000) with silicon wash and pre shrunk. Also comes in baby pink, blue, Army green, desert sand and gray. Reader Service #158 e. From Kati Sportcap, a reversible, wool blend bucket hat (AH61-3). It’s unstructured and one size fits all. Reader Service #159

Definitely the promotional product market for more urban-themed apparel is growing, and not just in the country’s more progressive apparel markets such as Los Angeles and New York. In an inner city neighborhood in Kansas City, MO, Chris Evans, president of T-Shirt King Inc., says “urban wear is everything to our customers.” And, though orders for baby Ts, oversized T-shirts, hoodies and other urban-style garments only account for 5% of Evans’ business, he says it’s one of the strongest areas of growth for his company.

Like most distributors in the ad specialties marketplace, Evans says his largest group of clients ordering street wear tend to be high school and college students looking to put logos on urban wear that’s far more progressive than typical T-shirts and sweats, with rhinestone-encrusted tank tops or sweatshirts with extra-large logos or artwork covering its front.
The trend has crossed over to other types of apparel, such as school uniforms. Within basketball team orders, Evans says, players are asking for shorts that now sport a longer, more urban-style, 11-inch inseam, rather than the traditional 9 inches.

Sororities and fraternities, Evans says, are another big area for clients, with students interested in T-shirts down to “the knees,” or sweatsuits with low-rise pants adorned with rhinestones.

But Evans has also had “car washes, restaurants, any business that wants to be fun or trendy, or in style,” visit his store to place orders for street wear clothing. “I don’t think the industry is aware of it yet, but it has huge potential,” he says.

Like rap music, which some predicted would be a passing musical genre when it first appeared, only to see it gain a permanent foothold in the music world, apparel experts within the promo products industry see the urban market as an increasing, if not enduring, influence among end-users. Even some corporations are keeping an eye toward that trend, ordering hoodies and oversized shirts for their employees, says Tom Harris, executive vice president at Promo Depot Inc. in Jacksonville, FL.

One company in the health and beauty industry that makes a line of hair care products for African-American women has increased its urban wear orders with Harris in recent years, he says. Initially the client ordered close-fitting, ribbed tank T-shirts a few years ago, he says, imprinted with its slogan on the front, an item it had its models wear at various trade shows. Then, the client increased those items, adding other urban wear requests in subsequent years.

Other clients have ordered jackets and loose-fitting, square “V-cut jeans,” Harris says. Sourcing such apparel items was difficult at first, but is becoming increasingly easier, he says, as the urban wear trend becomes stronger in the industry.

Business in these types of products, Harris says, has increased by about 50% year over year, with some of his clients coming from the corporate sector, though he cautions distributors who deal with more buttoned-up businesses. They’ll order street wear-style shirts and pants, he says, aware of the apparel trend in the marketplace, “only to find that most people they’re giving the clothes to can’t wear them because they’re too young.” A 45-year-old used to wearing a suit to work may not transition to street wear so easily, he says.

A fleeting trend?
Some distributors, like Robert Einhorn, president of Freehold, NJ-based Promotions & Unicorns, Too, see such industry trends as fleeting. “I see it as a cycle,” he says. “It’s a trend, that’s true. But I don’t see it as an urban trend.” Hoodies, sweatshirts and oversized Ts aren’t necessarily urban, he says.

Indeed, some of the hottest urban-style items, such as hoodies, are reincarnations from the 80s, varied to fit a 21st-century aesthetic, with larger logoes and artwork splashed across oversized garments. In that sense, Einhorn may be right: The latest urban wear trend in the marketplace, including the ad specialties market, may be the result of a cyclical phenomenon.
But with clothing lines in the consumer marketplace such as FuBu, Rocca Wear and Baby Phat, which have gained solid footing over several years and are dedicated to furthering urban-styled apparel, Einhorn’s comments may not consider the popularity of this clothing movement among the masses. And what’s popular in mainstream culture almost always spills over to the ad specialty market – often in strong numbers.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen because of the explosion you see of those brands in retail,” says Jeremy Lott, vice president of Seattle-based supplier SanMar. “If you told me someone was carrying Sean John next year, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he says, though Lott says he thinks a heavy infiltration of urban wear may not hit the market until at least another year. Eventually, he says, “I do think there is a market for it and someone could capture it in the corporate” arena.■