Fashion Box invests in Replay

Italian fashion retailer Fashion Box plans a major investment in its Japanese subsidiary in order to boost the sales and brand awareness of its Replay denim brand. It will strengthen womenswear, expand department store concessions, and open dedicated footwear stores. It also plans to contract with regional distributors.

Fashion Box Japan has a new president and a new strategy. From this year the new head, Paolo Chicco, formerly at Ruco Line, Pinko and Geox, plans a major overhaul of distribution and marketing. To start, Fashion Box Japan will make major efforts to expand womenswear sales; up to now 85% of Japanese sales have been menswear, but within a few years it hopes to see parity between menswear and womenswear. New lines of tops, non-denim bottoms and accessories will be introduced from A/W 2015/16 in order to better appeal to women and create more of a brand story.

As well as the core Replay brand, Fashion Box Japan will look to revive sales of the higher end Wear Replay brand and One Off. Wear Replay has average prices of around ¥40,000 compared to ¥28,000 for Replay.

Its retail portfolio will also be restructured. Department store concessions will be expanded, including women‘s only stores. There are currently 23 stores in Japan, excluding outlet stores, and this Spring three new department store concessions will be opened, of which two will be womenswear only. In the Autumn one more store will be opened, but Fashion Box will also start rolling out footwear-only concessions; two footwear stores will open this Autumn.

Until now all wholesale distribution has been handled by Fashion Box from Tokyo, but from this year Fashion Box will contract with local distributors in order to better access independent stores in the regions, leaving the head office to concentrate on the Tokyo and Nagoya markets. The first contracts will be signed with distributors in Kansai and Kyushu.