Beyond Jeans: Growing a Licensing Portfolio
True Religion is taking a holistic approach when it comes to its licensing program. The brand has eight licensees, representing 13 categories that range from men’s and women’s belts to small leather goods to sleepwear and loungewear to underwear, among other items. There’s also men’s, women’s, boys’ and girls’ footwear, fashion headwear, cold weather accessories and hosiery.
Much of the category expansion is fueled by customer shopping preferences. Consumers are now focusing on occasionwear, including items that they can wear to the office. And with denim a more acceptable component of workwear these days, True Religion has shifted its assortment mix from primarily T-shirts to include polo shirts and Henleys.
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“If the customer doesn’t want it, it doesn’t matter if it complements the brand,” said Paul Rosengard, True Religion executive vice president, head of wholesale and global licensing. “It’s more about relevance than scale. We look for rational adjacencies. And our consumer insights research tells us that our consumers permit us to extend our brand into these adjacent categories.”
The company manufactures products that it believes it has expertise in, such as denim and T-shirts, but will seek out the experts for other areas. For Rosengard, good licensing partners are those that understand the brand, are experts in their category and can scale distribution at True Religion’s core department and specialty store channel.
“We prefer to do it ourselves because we want to control our destiny as much as we can,” he said. Men’s board shorts — a category customers have been asking for — is one example where the brand will tackle on its own, but it would never attempt ladies’ swimwear. “There are certain classifications that require an expert, and so we look to licensing when we need the expert to address that market,” he added.
While global licensing operates out of True Religion’s New York office, Rosengard and his team also coordinate with the international team in London. The collaboration is so agreements that are ultimately signed can adjust for some flexibility to include specific distribution rights unique to a local consumer group. These rights tend to involve limited product runs on select items, or can involve special sizing, that serve to maximize sales for the brand — a win-win for the distributor and for True Religion.
Looking ahead, Rosengard is considering soft home goods, such as decorative pillows featuring the brand’s horseshoe logo, along with tech accessories, women’s swimwear and dresses — the latter based on feedback from retailers. He’s even considering pet accessories, noting that one prototype sent from a vendor was a jean jacket for dogs.
“True Religion is a youth culture lifestyle brand, rooted in denim. So, our products should work back to a pair of jeans,” Rosengard said.
