Four companies are producing high-end apparel as part of a brand being launched by Collegiate Licensing Co. that takes aim at what’s seen as an untapped area of the college sports apparel market.
The new College Vault brand features vintage team logos and styles on high-end clothing. Chip & Pepper, Twins Banner Supply, Tailgate Clothing and Mitchell & Ness have been licensed to produce the apparel, which should begin hitting retail outlets this summer.
“We’re getting product into the very top of the apparel pyramid,” said Kit Walsh, CLC’s vice president for marketing.
The products will carry vintage looks unseen during the retro craze of years past, as CLC only recently got these old marks and styles approved by its college clients. The brand name “tells consumers this is literally something we were pulling from a vault,” Walsh said.
CLC created the brand with help from Morrow Creative Group, a Portland-based brand agency that counts the NBA and NFL among its clients.
Mitchell & Ness signed an agreement to produce college sports apparel in July. That was before the College Vault concept was in place, Walsh said. The other three companies signed Vault agreements in February.
CLC has licensed Vault products for at least 30 schools of the more than 200 colleges and related entities for which it handles licensing business, Walsh said.
Mitchell & Ness is focused on varsity jackets and sweaters for Michigan, Notre Dame, Penn State, Syracuse, Miami, Duke, Wisconsin, Texas and Colorado, president Peter Capolino said. The jackets will retail for $400 and the sweaters for $200, with plans to roll them out Oct. 15.
Mitchell & Ness already makes high-end warm-up jackets for pro teams. “It’s really a matter of just broadening what we traditionally do,” Capolino said. “We would like to extend our brand into the college market as well.
“We’re not necessarily going after college students,” Capolino added, “as much as we’re going after college alumni.”
Tailgate, an Iowa-based college sports apparel company, will produce Vault T-shirts, fleece, sweatshirts and track jackets for select boutiques as well as department and sporting goods stores. Their tees will retail for $22 to $36; fleece for $55 to $80.
“College has such heritage and such a loyal fan base,” said Tailgate co-founder Steve King. “We have a throwback, old-school styling as it is, so this is the perfect fit for us.”
Los Angeles-based Chip & Pepper is making Vault T-shirts, sweatshirts and track jackets for boutiques and department stores. Their tees will retail for $68 to $72; the fleece and track jackets for $165 to $175.
Twins Banner Supply officials could not be reached by press time.
Vault products may have a narrow market, said Jens Bang, a former marketing executive for Reebok and Timberland and now president of Boston-based brand strategies company Cone Inc. The authenticity of the products and low supply should help them sell, he said, but the products are priced high, and the retro trend in sports apparel has abated.
“I think it’s an interesting idea,” Bang said, “but I wouldn’t think that it would be a huge generator of revenue.”
It could, however, broaden the four companies’ brands.
“They’re creating emotional attachments with the old logos,” Bang said. “At the same time, they expose their brand to a whole new market segment.”
