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Spring 2003
Ben Sherman Spring 2003 Advertising
(Photo by FWD)
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Ben Sherman Expands on Its Cool Status
Written by Karin Nelson
Photos by FWD
Aug 26,2002 /FWD/ --- Now on the heels of its 40th birthday, British label Ben Sherman might
still be churning out its recognizable slim-fit, short-sleeved, woven check shirts - the kind
Oasis, Brandon Boyd from Incubus and the boys from No Doubt are always spotted in -- to
effortlessly cool 20- and early-30-somethings the world over, but the brand is also beginning
to grow up, and branch out.
That means not only expanding the line to include designer denim and a higher-end "Black and
Orange" shirt line, but also women's wear for spring 2003, a shop in New York's Soho slated
for June 2003 -- with one to follow six months later in L.A. -- and somewhere between six
and eight licensing deals for sunglasses, a broader range of sneakers, underwear, watches,
boys' and youth, leather goods, and tailored suits.
"We couldn't just be a plain check company," shrugs 38-year-old company CEO Michael Buckley.
"We had to move in a more fashionable direction."
Not that there was anything amiss with the plain check shirts.
Since 1963, when founder Arthur Bernard Sugarman started the line of laid-back, button-fronts
and The Beatles, The Who, and even the glammed-up Stones strutted before screaming teens clad
in them, the shirts have signified a sort of rebel-prep hipness.
"Basically, in the late 60's and early '70s, if you didn't wear Ben Sherman you weren't cool,"
tells Buckley, who's lounging back in his Times Square office wearing a variation of the essential
shirt and a pair of the brand's vintage-wash jeans.
Now, though, the cool factor is being applied to their rainbow line of Comptons -- two-striped
kicks that Billie Joe from Green Day informed via email he refuses to take off - and their range
of denims from indigo-rinse to destroyed-wash, which, priced between $69-$89, are flying off of
shelves and accounting for 25% of the company's business.
Such expansion is responsible for the brand's doubling of sales, season over season.
And though the company hasn't quite reached its UK status as one of the top four most
recognizable brands (grouped amongst Nike, Reebok, and Adidas) it has, in the States, slowly
but surely become the uniform for today's rock 'n' roll ruling class - a distinction not
overlooked by Buckley.
"My dream is for Ben Sherman to be to music what Nike is to sports," he admits with a wide smile.
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