Add CategoryThese include Review, Yarra Trail, Marco Polo, Black Pepper, Breakaway, Everlast, Lonsdale and Bluey, which are sold through own stores and wholesale partners, such as Kmart, Rebel and David Jones.
“It indicates that we’re looking to bring a lot of new business into the organisation,” Eric Morris, CEO of PAS Group, said about Wilkinson’s appointment.
“Replay is the first new brand, but we’ll be looking at others along the way,” he told Inside Retail in an exclusive interview.
Fills a gap
Established as a denim brand in Italy in 1981, Replay sells a comprehensive range of apparel, accessories and footwear for men, women and children under the Replay, Replay & Sons and We Are Replay brands.
It currently has operations in over 50 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa, with a wholesale distribution network of 4000 points-of-sale, 120 mono-brand stores and 90 corners and shops-in-shop.
And it has a number of high-profile global sponsorships, including the All Blacks, football clubs Paris Saint-Germain and Ajax Amsterdam, and ambassadors Neymar Jr, Aston Martin’s Formula One team, including Sebastien Vettel, as well as world-renowned sprinter Usain Bolt.
But it is Replay’s history of sustainable manufacturing — it claims to have been one of the first independent fashion brands to introduce more environmentally friendly technologies, natural pigments, recycled fabrics and reduced water consumption to its processes — that is most exciting to Morris.
“This is a fantastic new partnership for PAS and we’re very excited to launch Replay into the Australian and New Zealand markets in the first quarter of 2022,” he said. “We see a gap here for the relevant product ranges with a strong sustainability message.”
PAS Group plans to open three to five Replay stores before deciding on a broader rollout. The first store is set to open in February. PAS Group is also exploring wholesale distribution of the brand through the likes of David Jones and independent menswear retailers. It also plans to launch a local online shopping site.
The initial Replay offering will be heavily skewed towards menswear, with a narrower range of apparel and footwear for women. According to Morris, the brand fills a gap in its current offering for men.
“It’s a different price point to the rest of the product offering we have for the male consumer,” Morris said, pointing to PAS Group brands like Everlast and Lonsdale, which are primarily sold in discount department stores like Kmart.
$550 million company
Since it was acquired out of administration by Queens Lane Capital, the private equity arm of Kestelman’s LK Group, last year, PAS Group has returned to profitability and started to reinvest in its brands, stores and marketing, according to a recent interview with Kestelman.
“[Before] these latest lockdowns, we were tracking extremely positively,” he told Inside Retail last month.
“We managed to turn the business around from being a loss-making or breakeven business to a business with strong profitability and one that’s moving towards the record profits it experienced in the earlier days. And I’m happy to say the mood of the business is extremely upbeat. It’s not easy out there, but everyone feels like we’re absolutely on the right track.”
Together with Brand Collective, the retail business that runs Superdry, Clarks, Hush Puppies, Volley and Shoes & Sox in Australia and New Zealand, which LK Group bought less than a month ago, PAS Group is now part of an organisation with over $550 million in annual retail sales, 250 freestanding stores and 113 concessions.
With the addition of Replay, and Wilkinson tasked with bringing more brands on board, these figures will likely only grow bigger from here.