Australian fashion and footwear company Accent Group has appointed two new divisional general managers as it gears up to take on the licences of Dickies and Lacoste in Australia.
The group, which manages over 30 fashion brands including Hoka, The Athlete’s Foot and Glue Store, has appointed Tom Nolan to oversee Accent’s three VF Corporation brands – Vans, Timberland and now Dickies.
Nolan moves over from Aqueo Import & Distribution based in Sydney, where he oversaw the local push of Havaianas for the last nine years, first as a national sales manager and then as GM.
Sarah Pizzey – former GM of The PAS Group – has also been recently appointed to oversee the Lacoste launch as well as Accent’s Wolverine Worldwide brands Saucony and Merrell.
Accent Group’s executive general manager Liam Robson confirmed the new executive hires with Ragtrader, with both brands set to have a core team in the single digits, with other resources pooled across the group.
Robson said he and the team are working through a transition phase for both Dickies and Lacoste from prior licence partners; Atomic Fashion Marketing for Dickies and True Alliance for Lacoste.
From July 1 this year, Accent will launch a new website for Dickies in Australia, which will be in line with the brand’s global online platform, and will take on the brand’s local wholesale accounts.
The current website, managed by Atomic Fashion Marketing, recently underwent a “closing down sale”, with the website now officially shut down.
“We feel there's a good opportunity for us to refresh and re-launch the brand in the marketplace, and that is absolutely our intention,” Robson said. “It'll be a relatively soft launch initially in the first quarter, but then we'll look to ramp that up through the second quarter as we trade into that key trading period, November, December.”
Robson projects the brand’s channel mix ratio will be 50/50 between wholesale and direct-to-consumer, with digital expected to make about 40 per cent in the DTC portfolio.
Further ahead, Robson plans to open standalone Dickies stores, starting in Sydney and Melbourne initially.
Dickies is owned by VF Corporation – owner of The North Face and Icebreaker – which has had a long-standing partnership with Accent Group for over 20 years, representing both the Vans and Timberland brands. Dickies has also previously been distributed through Glue Store. According to Robson, VF approached Accent regarding Dickies, which he saw as a great opportunity.
“It fits nicely into our portfolio of brands that we range and is also complementary to our multi-branded retail platform, and equally talks to the large percentage of our existing wholesale network,” Robson said. “So it was a pretty seamless transition in terms of being able to represent the brand.
“And obviously VF wanted to ensure that the brand going forward was under the stewardship of brand builders, hence the reason they selected us and moved away from a previous licence arrangement to a distribution agreement.”
Dickies is a global brand selling in the workwear and street categories, across men’s, women’s, kid’s and accessories. Robson said Accent has an opportunity to scale in both streetwear and workwear categories, with Dickies core workwear items including tradie-wear and scrubs for nurses and doctors.
“Obviously, the street wear fashion side for us is a much easier transition,” Robson said. “We'll accelerate that much quicker. But definitely, we see an opportunity in workwear over time.
“The workwear business globally is extremely successful, and I think there's some opportunity for us to replicate that model.”
As for Lacoste, Robson said Accent Group will take over the wholesale arm in July, with the brand’s retail arm set to move under Accent in April next year. The brand currently operates six outlet stores across Australia, and is sold through both Myer and David Jones.
Compared to Dickies, though, Lacoste sits more in the DTC space, with Robson expecting that to make up about 70 per cent, with wholesale at about 30 per cent.
“I've just come back from Paris,” Robson said. “The brand's really well represented in Europe. We think there's a huge opportunity to elevate the brand in this market.
“I think it's probably positioned as mid-tier. We think there's a great opportunity to elevate its positioning as a premium, entry level luxury brand in this market. We're extremely excited by Lacoste.”