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CULTURED FEMALES

?LOVE CULTURE TARGETS YOUNG WOMEN WITH ITS TRENDY APPAREL AND MESSAGE

By Jesse Serwer

Girl power is the prevailing theme at Love Culture, a junior fashions retailer that unveiled its first store in September, at Westfield Plaza Bonita, in National City, Calif.

With a total of five stores to be operating by the end of this year, and plans to open seven to 10 more next year, the Los Angeles-based brand is aiming to become a favorite among fashion-forward but cost-conscious teen girls and young women by introducing them to a world where they can call the shots.

To that effect, store displays carry such slogans as “Make your mark” and “When girls take over.” And the Love Culture storefront is a thrusting, translucent box that features a pink tractor — a masculine/feminine symbol of the kind the chain plans to use for getting its point across.

“We see our customer as a woman who’s in her 20s, post-college and trying to make her mark in society,” said William Fowler, a company co-founder and the executive vice president for real estate. “So we like the idea of having these feminine representations of images that this woman would identify with. The box in the front where the tractor is can change — it can be a Vespa, a skateboard, or a muscle car, like a Ford GT.”

The brand, which will compete with Forever 21, H&M and Zara by offering trendy, private-label casual wear and accessories at affordable price points, is differentiating itself with its 6,500-square-foot box that is attracting the attention of not just its target consumer but of everyone who encounters it. “It’s created a lot of intrigue in the centers where it’s opened,” said Don Hollis, whose Hollis Brand Communications the chain hired to develop the branding and graphic design. (Fowler was also vice president of leasing at Forever 21.) “If you do a visual survey, there aren’t any people going by that are not turning their heads and trying to figure out what’s going on in there.”

The store’s aesthetic is further enhanced with glass-wall finishes and high-end ceramic tiling. The idea, Fowler says, is to create “an upscale feeling that at the same time won’t intimidate the customer” and keep her from entering. “We like to call it a ‘peek-seek,’ because the storefront has these graphics that bleed up from the floor and down from the ceiling in place of traditional signage,” Fowler said. “It’s translucent so you can see inside the store.”

CEO Jai Rhee, who was a senior vice president at Forever 21, dreamed up the concept with its “high-low” fashion options. “The phrase ‘high-low’ refers to the fact that you can blend our clothes and accessories with higher-end merchandise,” Fowler said. “You could wear our jeans or one of our tops and put a Gucci bag or a Gucci blazer on. There’s a lot of career-oriented casual wear they can wear to work, or tops that are for clubbing so they can go out and meet someone, or just clothes for a woman going through her day-to-day life, functioning as a mom, for example.”

Though college-age women, post-grads and their savvy younger sisters are the primary targets, that first store, which opened over Labor Day weekend, has been a hit with women even in their mid-40s, says Fowler. “We think that warmer climates and more-affluent areas are going to be best for us, partly because women in these areas tend to be more in tune with exercise and physical conditioning,” Fowler said. “More so than in other environments, that’s where we will attract that 40- or 45-year-old customer, which broadens our sweet spot. We also want to go into locations where we know there are co-tenants that draw that fashion-conscious woman.”
Fowler cites Anthropologie, Bebe, Juicy Couture, Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters as ideal co-tenants. “I’m more interested in seeing how well the overall mix works and how well the center is performing than I am in worrying about competition,” he said.

Armed with their retail experience at the highly successful Forever 21 and with the striking store prototype, Rhee and Fowler have had little difficulty persuading major national landlords to place the units in prime locations at well-performing malls and lifestyle centers. In addition to Westfield Plaza Bonita, Love Culture was at press time in the process of opening at Simon Property Group’s Del Amo Fashion Center, in Torrance, Calif.; at The Shops at Pembroke Gardens, an Anderson Real Estate–owned lifestyle center in the upscale Miami suburb of Pembroke Pines; and at Willowbrook Mall, in Houston, a General Growth Properties mall that Fowler says generates sales in the vicinity of $500 per square foot.

Coming locations include Taubman Centers’ brand-new Mall at Partridge Creek, in Clinton Township, Mich., where Love Culture plans to open sometime this month, and Westfield Southcenter, Seattle, where a store is slated to open early in the new year. “One of our strategies is to test the water with each major national landlord and do about two stores with them first,” said Fowler. “We want them to get a taste for how we can perform.”

William Y. Hecht, senior executive vice president for U.S. leasing at Westfield Group, says Love Culture sold him right off the bat with its eye-catching marketing prospectus. “They did a terrific job in their presentation,” Hecht said. “The materials they put together in terms of design, their merchandising perspective and just their overall business proposition was about as well done as I’ve seen for a concept that had not opened yet.”

Beyond the 12 to 15 stores Love Culture expects to have open by year-end 2008, its plans call for about as many more in 2009, mostly in the Southeast and on the West Coast. After that, the sky is the limit, says Fowler. “We could easily take this concept up to 400 stores,” Fowler said.

“Our strategy will be similar to any well-established national chain. We’re going to build a real strong foundation of quality shopping centers, then, as we grow, we’re going to try not to oversaturate marketplaces, so we can remain somewhat unique. Once we’ve established the brand, we will go back and in-fill. I think we’re positioned well if there’s an economic downturn, and even if there’s not, we benefit from the fact that a woman can come in here and pick up jeans or a shirt that’s a little bit cheaper, to go with the Gucci footwear they already have.”

Hecht seconds the idea that Love Culture can go national. “It may be too early to say, [but] it’s conceivable that, given its price point and its fashion attitude, this could be a 500-, 600- or 700-store chain,” said Hecht. “It’s going to have pretty broad appeal. I believe their niche is a little more fashionable and more feminine then other junior tenants that we have in our centers, which we like quite a bit.”