Competition is stiff in the apparel business and longtime players are rethinking their product lines. Which is why VF of Greensboro, N.C., paid $110 million to acquire Portland-based women’s activewear brand lucy. 

After fighting its way back from its own dot-com bust, lucy built a street-side business featuring its line of figure-flattering activewear worth $57 million in sales last year.

Lucy joins hipster jeans-maker Seven for All Mankind, which VF arranged to pick up at the same time for $775 million, in a new VF “coalition” (apparently the term “division” is passé) of contemporary brands. VF’s other coaltions include outdoor (including brands such as Northface and Eastpak), sportswear (Nautilus) and jeanswear (Lee and Wrangler). VF’s acquisitions allow it to go after a higher-end consumer; contemporary is another word for someone willing to drop $200 on a pair of jeans and $150 on the perfect yoga outfit.

The lucy deal comes on the heels of the $175 million acquisition of Portland’s chi-chi kidswear brand Hanna Andersson by St. Louis-based Kellwood Company, announced in June. In both cases, the new owners are expected to keep their mitts off day-to-day operations (at least for now) and let the brands continue their expansions. Lucy has 50 retail stores and counting and Hanna has 18 with more on the drawing board. 

Retail analyst Jennifer Black of Jennifer Black and Associates in Lake Oswego says competition has squeezed vendors such as Kellwood, which used to specialize in the in-store private label lines that have fallen out of favor. Both Hanna and lucy, with their upscale devotees, growing number of stores and sizable revenue, made juicy acquisition targets.

If girl-name apparel acquisitions, like celebrity deaths, happen in threes, we’ve got one more to go.                   

CHRISTINA WILLIAMS

List researched by Mark Druskoff                   ND=Not disclosed


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