by The Editors on March 6, 2008
After announcing that it’s same-store sales in February fell 2.6 percent (which doesn’t sound like a whole lot to us) Zumiez stock took a 14% plunge this morning.
The Everett company (NASDAQ: ZUMZ) said total sales increased last month to $23.1 million from $20.7 million. . . . Analysts were expecting February same-store sales to grow by 1.4 percent to 2 percent so the decline caught some by surprise. Sara Hasan at McAdams Wright Ragen in Seattle lowered her 2008 fiscal year earnings estimate from 97 cents to 92 cents, but she kept a “buy” rating on the stock.
This on the same day that Pacific Sunwear announced that it’s total sales for February increased seven percent and same-store sales for the month increased six percent. Hmmm. . .
[Link: Puget Sound Business Journal]
by The Editors on March 3, 2008
by The Editors on March 3, 2008
Volcom is up to six retail stores with the December opening of their Telegraph Ave. store in Berkeley, California “just a stone’s throw from the Cal Berkeley campus.” But they waited until last Friday night to have a grand opening party.
People filled the Volcom store on Telegraph Avenue Friday night to celebrate its grand opening with an all-ages party complete with free beer, free pizza and live music.
Although the boardsports-oriented clothing store officially opened its doors for business in December, they wanted the community to become more familiar with their products.
“We just want to introduce ourselves to the community and let everyone know we’re in town,” said Jeff Roberts, vice president of retail for Volcom.
And the Stone marches on.
[Link: The Daily Californian]
by The Editors on March 2, 2008
According to BusinessWire:
Zumiez Inc. (NASDAQ:ZUMZ) today announced that the Company’s conference call to discuss fourth quarter fiscal 2007 financial results will be broadcast live over the Internet on Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time and may be accessed at http://ir.zumiez.com. To listen to the webcast, please go to the website at least 15 minutes prior to the start time to register and download any necessary software.
[Link: BusinessWire]
by The Editors on February 29, 2008
Skate and Annoy had a much better title in their coverage of this horrific new roller board that reminded us of our youth spent listening to the Surf Punks, but we’re just going to call this new invention a “fruit board” because it’s an amalgamation of a fruit boot and a skate board. It’s inventors apparently call it an “on shore board.”
Sad, retarded, and destined for failure.
[Link: Skate and Annoy]
by The Editors on February 29, 2008
Pierre Andre Senizergues has put his personal interior designer Gil Le Bon De LaPoint on the road with a rolling art/design project called Skate Study House (a skateboarding twist on Arts & Architecture magazine’s ground-breaking Case Study House project of the mid century). The duo most recently closed their launch show on February 2, 2008 in Paris at Colette (213 rue Saint-Honore 75001 Paris). Here’s what they say about the show:
SKATE STUDY HOUSE (SSH) is an innovative design concept specializing in recreating popular furniture through the vision of a skateboarder. The movement of a skateboarder constantly changes — it recreates itself by transcending boundaries and inventing ways to conquer obstacles. It’s constantly about anticipation and adaptation to one’s environment. The same is true for living design. The combination of the two produces a mixture of contemporary lifestyle, art and action sports culture, which is all found in this unique collection.
In other words, Pierra and Gil have taken all the iconographic mid-century furniture and interior designs and made them out of skateboards (with help from Jim Gray of Acme). Represented deviations include several Eames chairs, a Nelson Platform Bench, Nelson Clock and Coat Rack, and a Noguchi table. And it’s all for sale. Photos after the jump.
[Link: Skate Study House]
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by The Editors on February 29, 2008
We all know him from his work with Girl and Lakai, but designer Andy Mueller has been doing some bigger projects lately, most notably all the illustration work for the print and outdoor advertising campaign for the 2008 Los Angeles Marathon. Creativity interviewed Andy as well as RPA copywriter Eric Helin and senior art director Nathan Crow about the campaign.
We wanted to try to come up with about 10 solid L.A. based locations that could get up and run (or ride a bike for the Bike Ride portion on this event). I drew up these 10 roughs, and we then narrowed it down to the six strongest visual locations. . . I think the simple drawing approach works really well with this idea. It gets to the meaning without too much stylist interference. I also think the simplicity allows people of all ages and skill levels to relate to the Bike Tour and Marathon. It’s a very involvement-based sort of message, not just one person from a certain neighborhood or area running, but rather everybody running. It’s very warm and friendly.
For the rest of the interview click the link.
[Link: Creativity Online]
by The Editors on February 28, 2008
The site has been stagnant for almost two weeks, however, today a new site showed up at TransWorld Business. After a quick cruise through the site we’d have to say it looks . . . well, just like a WordPress blog. Wonder what theme they’re using.
The old content looks to be gone-daddy-gone. Hopefully, they’ll hook it up later. It would be a shame if 16 years of action sports business content simply vanished from the web. Not to mention throwing an industry leading site down into a content race with anyone who wants to download WordPress and choose a theme.
Transworld Business appears to be a work in progress. Which is great. The site has needed some sprucing for years. We’ll keep you posted when we get a chance to check out the site in more detail (and after Transworld tech people get a chance to tune it up a little, because yeah, there are many problems with the site currently).
[Link: Transworld Business]
by The Editors on February 27, 2008
Local coverage is always so enthusiastic. Here is an example from San Deigo City Beat’s profile on Dekline:
Benzien and I sit in the showroom of Dekline Footwear’s Logan Heights headquarters, where he’s the lead designer. Benzien co-founded the company in 2002 with Kevin Furtado, just as skate shoes began the transition from skateboarder-specialized regalia to hipster and hip-hop fashion. Last year, sales of skate shoes grew 34 percent, faster than any other segment of the footwear market, according to retail market researcher NPD Group.
In just a few years of existence, Dekline has established itself as an industry leader in look and feel. At last month’s Action Sports Retailers convention in San Diego, skate and shoe sellers repeatedly referred me to Dekline as the It company in the field.
Industry leader in look and feel? Alright, as long as you’re not saying sales, we guess we can agree.
[Link: San Diego City Beat]
by The Editors on February 24, 2008
Though we’ve seen reviews of his book Corpus Christi: Stories we don’t remember reading Bret Anthony Johnston’s work in any of the skateboard magazines. Maybe that’s because he is a good writer.
The skateboarding novelist is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and is now the director of creative writing at Harvard University.
Johnston says: “The skills required to be a successful writer or a successful artist of any kind are the same skills that are required for being a successful skateboarder. You really see the world differently than everybody else does and you have a patience and a perseverance and maybe a penchant for masochism in ways that most other people don’t.” . . . “You have to be able to stay there, hour after hour, and hurt yourself, do splits on the banister, whack your shins and stay there bleeding and sweating until you can make the trick that you want to make. It’s the same thing for writers. You have to log the hours. You have to look at the world in a different way and be prepared to sit in a chair as long as it takes to render that world and the characters in your imagination truthfully.”
Indeed.
[Link: Radio Iowa]
