Lela Designs goes organic route
Lela Designs will present its extensive clothing collection, which features organic fibers, at the PGA Merchandise Show, Jan. 25-27, in Orlando, Fla.
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Thursday, January 18, 2007
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NEWS Fairway Skins introduces new product lineFairway Skins Co. introduces a new product line consisting of floral zippered pouches to complement its existing glove line.  Stuburt to make PGA Show debutStuburt will exhibit its new range of rainwear, designed in part by Ryder Cup member David Howell at the PGA Merchandise Show, Jan. 25-27, in Orlando, Fla.  Claudia Romana to exhibit at PGA ShowGolf By Claudia Romana extends it 2007 collection with designs for more growth in 2008.  Dunning Golf to debut Fall line at PGA ShowDunning Golf will introduce its Fall 2007 collection, including Tour Stretch outerwear featuring c_change technology, at the PGA Merchandise Show, Jan. 25-27, in Orlando, Fla.  Keri Golf adds to its Spring collectionKeri Golf has created junior bags as part of its Spring 2007 collection of fashion and performance specialty golf bags and accessories.  Aphira's newest line shinesAphira's Summer/Fall collection included more than 100 styles of tops, skorts, shorts, capris and dresses.  Perry Ellis taps KnappPerry Ellis International Inc. hires Jeff Knapp as vice president of sales for the company's Ping Collection Green Grass division. Q-AND-AKen Shwartz, CEO, Ahead
Q.: I'd like to start by going back to when you had an 8-foot table at the PGA Merchandise Show 11 years ago. And did you ever envision that happening? KEN SHWARTZ: I absolutely envisioned it happening. When we started, we had a concept and a game plan, but there was certainly a lot of trepidation at the first PGA Show. The conceptual trepidation we had was somewhat assuaged at that first show because even though nobody knew us, most people who looked at the product wanted to buy the product. So the concern quickly went from 'Was anybody even going to accept the concept?' to 'OK, now we've got to manage the business and set up an operation and be able to ship orders out.' But you can't have the second without the first. You don't need an operation if the concept isn't right. Maybe we were mollified going into the show because we spent a lot of time in preparation, and we had to hope the first couple days we had some real positive reaction. We did. And we quickly grew; we grew our booth every year at the show and I think one of the reasons we continue to grow probably has something to do with the aptitude of the people, myself included, that we started with and have always had. The name [Ahead], I think, lends a lot of meaning to what we do. I think we try to stay ahead in trend and design and look and fashion and all that stuff. And we always brought new innovation to what we did. The headwear business when we first started was somewhat French vanilla in that most of what you saw in the shops was just the club, the course, using their own logo. Even today, when logos are designed for new courses, they generally are designed by marketing/advertising people who are not thinking about how they may reproduce on wearing apparel. They're thinking more about the logo and how it may look in print or on a sign or something like that. Some of them, many of them, are not the best looking logo to put on a hat or a garment. So what we did quickly brought to the market was alternative logos -- designed to use their name, maybe use their logo as a component of the design, but didn't just use the logo. At the first show we did, we had zero caps that looked like what the market had only seen for the last ten years. Caps that just had the club logo on the front. The second interesting thing about when we first started was we put our label, our Ahead logo label, on the back of every cap. That first show, some of the people wanted to buy the product with the alternative logos, and they said, "Yeah, but can we get it without your label on the back?" And we said "No, you can't. It all comes like that and please understand why and who we're trying to be, we're going to be. We will be a brand, a meaningful brand at some point down the road and even if today nobody knows what that logo is and what it means on the back of the hat, you would probably agree with us that it's a nice looking branded logo. And it probably won't turn anybody off. It looks like a brand." Most people agreed with and they didn't care. Twenty percent or so, somewhere in that vicinity, didn't want to buy the cap because we wouldn't take the label off the back. And we just had to pass on that business to start. Q.: I'm assuming that those people came back eventually. KEN SHWARTZ: I think so. Part of what we tried to say at the first show, maybe the second show, was to get them to think about losing the profit that they might be losing if they wait and wait and wait. So not everybody placed orders. It is my guess that a bigger percentage of those who owned their own shop and didn't really have anybody to report to, when they liked it and they saw it, they bought it. Some of them didn't own the shop, perhaps had somebody to report to and were a little concerned about doing something that was so radically different at the time. Given their concern, if it didn't work there might be consequences for them, for their employment. Q.: Another aspect to your product, outside of the hat itself, is the different appliques that you do. Obviously you have forced others in the headwear industry, as well as the PGA professional, to look at another way of marketing their product. Where did all of the innovation come from? KEN SHWARTZ: I think that we had no choice. There's a market, there's competition. You have to, every year, continue to come up with the latest and greatest. When your competitors then go and try to copy it, you have to be able to say there's a certain amount of flattery. We were always able to say "Well, the copy's never as good as the original." But there's pressure every year to come up with something new that's marketable and sellable, because much of what we do is not patentable -- some new ornamentation type or look or color or whatever it is. Some are, but most aren't. We just have to stay ahead of everybody. There's pressure to do that. And that pressure forces you to commit resources to make sure you come up with the latest greatest. If you're known for innovation and a brand, you probably got to be where your product command is the highest retail. If you don't have that, the opposite side is the bottom feeder. The one who just says, my price is better than anybody else. And then there are those in between. And I think in any industry, the golf industry included, almost any product you can think of, you have tiers of competitors. And the guy at the top is under pressure to stay innovative. Q.: When did you decide that technology was an issue for headwear? KEN SHWARTZ: I think we saw it coming three or four or five years ago. We just had to pick our spot, and I think that until this year, when we rolled out a line of technical headwear we call Acare, we actually thought it was perhaps too soon. And what we didn't want to do was rush into it and one of the reasons we didn't want to rush into it was because the other issue with headwear is, your head sweats a lot more than your body. And we had concerns with some of the fabric that is out there. We know some other headwear companies just rushed to put something out there. Fabrics that they were using just didn't work that well when a person really started sweating a lot. And so we didn't rush at all. We were concerned about that. And we took our time, we analyzed, we looked at fabric, we really made samples like crazy, we tested them in the marketplace. And we finally felt comfortable that we had some fabrics or combinations of fabrics that would work well. And so that is why this year we are finally rolling out a diverse line, what we call Acare head wear. Q.: Talk about your entry into the apparel side. KEN SHWARTZ: No doubt when we started, there were larger companies to compete against with well known brands. We actually entered the apparel business probably a year earlier than we wanted to, but as we started talking about apparel with customers, we found a lot of the buyers -- I don't want to say they pushed us into it -- welcomed it with open arms for us to get into the apparel business. And it was nice to hear, and I think that it spurred us to get in a year earlier than we would have. We didn't do anything right away with nutty fabrics or nutty silhouettes, we just added a touch. A different flavor. A lot of the buyers recognized if we did the same thing in apparel, we would come up with an apparel line that could perhaps fill a bit of a void for them. Q.: Your history with ornamentation, is that part of the reason why you got into the accessories line as well? KEN SHWARTZ: The accessories line … we chuckle about this because when I first started the company, that was not a thought. The accessories -- the divot repair tools, ball markers, money clips and leather accessories -- that was not part of the thought. We didn't know anything about it. When we first started the company, we knew we wanted to move into apparel at the right time. We knew apparel, but the accessories thing came about because we came up with this idea and we patented it for this ball marker hat. As you know, one of the components that we use a lot is the metal clasp at the back that helps adjust the strap. And we found away to put a magnet in there so it would hold an iron ball marker. Ergonomically it ended up being perfect, because your hand goes right there. Q.: Did you think with about maybe buying, acquiring some other company that did accessories versus starting your own company? KEN SHWARTZ: Yes, we obviously, we had that thought, but we just didn't want to buy into somebody else's … it was much better for us to do it our way from the start and didn't have to necessarily pay for the hats that somebody else didn't do in the way that we would have done it. Q.: You mentioned that when you first started there were other product lines that you may develop. Is that still a potential for you? KEN SHWARTZ: Yeah, it is. People come to us on other items and they want us to license them for them. Like we have had a number of people come that want to do sunglasses, footwear, belts. And we have just said no, we're not interested in anybody else using our brand right now. We ourselves are just too busy with the products we have right now to even consider thinking about doing another product right now. So the answer to that is we won't be doing another product any time soon. KEN SHWARTZ BIO Born: July 25, 1955 Education: BS Geography, Oregon State, 1978 Work/Experience: 1980-1993 Universal Ind, sold to Logo7/Tultex in 1992. Started Ahead in 1995. Family: Wife, June; children, Ben (20) and Brady (16). Interests/Activities: Golf, basketball, fishing, water skiing. |
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