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Ralph Lauren’s Rugby brings edgy prep-wear to campus

BY MAURA K. AMMENHEUSER

Having already put his name on everything from paint to perfume, Ralph Lauren is taking his preppy style back to school with a new specialty-apparel concept called Rugby. The store, aimed at college students, sells its own line that infuses Lauren’s gentrified brand with a youthful edge.

Last November Polo Ralph Lauren unveiled its first Rugby boutique on Boston’s Newbury Street. A second store opens this month in Chapel Hill, N.C., and a third is planned for Charlottesville, Va. Although the concept is still in the testing phase, Rugby could eventually operate as many as 40 stores, analysts say, noting that it is a concept that will be confined to upscale college towns.

Rugby is rolling out at a time when youth fashions are moving away from the “street” and toward Lauren’s clean-cut, upscale image. Sales of such hip-hop-inspired garb as oversized shirts and baggy jeans, for instance, fell in 2004, according to Howard Davidowitz, chairman of New York City-based retail consultant firm Davidowitz & Associates. “What’s cool now? The clean, preppy look,” he said. “Look at American Eagle Outfitters. Preppy is in and Ralph Lauren is on fire.”

Punk meets prep
But Rugby shoppers aren’t going to find any replicas of their dads’ Polo shirts in these stores. Instead, the Rugby style is “punk rock meets preppy,” said Jon Callahan, co-owner of Stel’s, a designer clothing boutique that is a neighbor to Rugby in Boston. Callahan notes that Rugby carries sportcoats embroidered with skulls, for instance.

“Ralph Lauren has always been more classic lines and styling,” said Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group, a Charleston, S.C.-based market research firm. But Lauren described Rugby as “cooler, hipper, and [it] has an attitude,” when he and other company officials announced the company’s second-quarter results in November.

Given its target audience of men and women 18 to 25, Rugby represents Lauren’s first foray into the collegiate market. “I have been thinking about a younger customer for several years,” he said during an announcement of Polo Ralph Lauren’s second-quarter numbers in November. The quarter’s total sales climbed 16 percent to $1.17 billion, while same-store sales at the company’s 270 Ralph Lauren and Club Monaco names and its outlet stores were up 3.7 percent.

The company’s boom is the result of years of long-term strategizing, analysts say. In the past four years, Polo Ralph Lauren bought back its license for clothing in Europe, automated a warehouse and made some improvements to its information technology structure.

But perhaps most important, Polo Ralph Lauren gained greater control over its brands and retail channels, sources say. The company bought out its licensees in children’s wear, for example, as well as part of its Japanese market and all of the Lauren line. In fact, Rugby is the first Polo Ralph Lauren collection to be sold exclusively in its own boutiques. This is a departure for Lauren, which historically has sold its goods through department stores and, in recent years, less pricey venues.

“In the late 1990s, Ralph Lauren went on a licensing binge,” said Andy Graves, a senior research analyst at Pacific Growth Equities in San Francisco. It also “overexpanded in department stores and off-price retailers, such as T.J. Maxx and Ross Stores. Consumers could find Polo shirts at Costco.” But the company has pulled back from low-price venues now “and refocused on developing great product and reburnishing its image as a luxury icon,” Graves added. It is against this healthy financial backdrop and with its new in-house real estate strategy in place that Lauren launched Rugby.

Prep meets price
But the new concept is no guaranteed score, observers say. One question is whether 20-somethings will pay designer prices for casual clothes. The chain’s signature rugby shirt, for instance, available for men and women, starts at $68, according to the company Web site. Cashmere sweaters sell for $78 and tweed suit separates go for $298.

Retail experts are divided on how well those prices will play. Davidowitz calls them “astronomical.” But “if the fashion is right,” he speculates, “some people will think they have to have it.”

Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard’s Retail Consulting Group, a Nutley, N.J.-based retail consulting firm, agrees. “All you have to do is look at the performance of very luxury-oriented stores,” he said, pointing to the likes of Coach, Neiman Marcus and Saks. “Clearly, it’s a gamble. Increasingly, young people today are less given to ostentation than their parents were at that age.” On the other hand, he acknowledges, the students Rugby woos are “accustomed to wealth,” and their parents may help finance wardrobes as well as educations.

Rugby is “going to have a lot of challenges,” said Beemer. Its strongest market, he opines, is not college sophomores, but those recent grads who continue to dress like students. “It’s overpriced for the college market.”

Whether students or recent grads are driving the business, Rugby’s Boston store is performing well, sources say. Nancy Murray, Polo Ralph Lauren’s senior vice president of public relations, told The Chapel Hill News that the store posted more than four times projected sales on opening day.

“We believe this provides yet another leg for Ralph Lauren’s retail growth,” wrote Lizabeth Dunn, a Prudential Equity Group analyst, “and that concept could eventually have up to 40 stores.”

Boston got the nod for the Rugby debut because of its collegiate population — the city is home to Harvard and Boston universities and other schools. Further, Newbury Street, one of Boston’s most popular shopping districts, already boasts a Polo Ralph Lauren shop, several blocks from Rugby.

Rugby opened on a section of the street that “is getting a little more high-end and still maintaining its funkiness,” according to Callahan. Rugby’s immediate neighbors include a Diesel, an Urban Outfitters and a Virgin Megastore.

A second Rugby unit is expected by its landlord to open on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, N.C., this month. The 3,000-square-foot location is on prime real estate in a thriving retail district that serves the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and its 15,700 undergraduates. The median household income within two miles is about $120,000 a year, says Aaron Nelson, executive director of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce.

Rugby is leasing the Chapel Hill space from the family of Alexander Julian, a renowned clothing designer. Missy Julian-Fox, Alexander’s sister, runs Julian’s, a menswear store their father opened on Franklin Street some 60 years ago, across the street from where Rugby will stand.

The store will take over space vacated by a women’s accessories boutique and a hair salon after a fire last year. Julian-Fox says Rugby will complement a growing concentration of clothing designers and retailers on Franklin Street.

The strong keep moving
The Chapel Hill deal came together quickly (Polo Ralph Lauren announced it within months of a first visit last summer, Julian-Fox says), but the company has a reputation for thorough research about prospective sites. Rugby will also open a store at Federal Realty Investment Trust’s Barracks Road Shopping Center, a 476,720-square-foot power center in Charlottesville, Va. Charlottesville is home to the University of Virginia and 12,900 undergrads.

According to The Chapel Hill News, Polo Ralph Lauren plans to open four to six Rugby stores in 2005. Kathleen Greer, a company spokeswoman, told The Daily Tar Heel, UNC-Chapel Hill’s newspaper, that Rugby is also seeking sites in New York City and Washington, D.C.

“Don’t expect to see more than four” Rugby stores open this year, Graves said. “They’re trying to see whether they can migrate this upper-end luxury part of the business into the post-collegiate crowd. I don’t think we’ll see a pell-mell approach to opening stores.”

Besides, the growth options are not boundless, some say. “There’s a limit to the number of stores you can have,” said Barnard. Rugby is too specialized to have anything like 500 units, he adds. Beemer says he thinks Rugby could do well in streetscape-style, outdoor, upscale lifestyle centers, not just freestanding sites. “That’s probably better than a mall,” Beemer said.

Few, if any, other major apparel designers have rolled out collections just for the college market. But Rugby has competition even so: Abercrombie & Fitch, Arden B. (a Wet Seal subsidiary), Bebe, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom — all upscale retailers catering to a young urban clientele, Graves says.

Beemer says Rugby will probably compete not only with Abercrombie, but also on the low-to-moderate end with American Eagle Outfitters — more than its management may think. But those chains are trendier, so Polo Ralph Lauren will have to create demand.

Still, the company’s long history of success with fashion retail, its overall financial strength and the fact that classic cuts are coming back all speak well for Rugby. “This will be very powerful,” Davidowitz said.

“Whenever you launch a new retail fashion business, you’re rolling the dice,” he said. But “a business has to go somewhere — you can’t just sit there.”

Well, Rugby seems to be the latest move by a company that has not just sat there.

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