New Balance has announced the creation of an independent company, called DryDock Footwear, to develop the group's presence in the casual-comfort segment of the market. Bob Infantino, a successful American shoe industry veteran who has been working out of Boston as well, most recently for Clarks, will act as president of DryDock, with full responsibility for product design and development, sourcing and quality control.
The new company will take advantage of the U.S. footwear manufacturing and assembly facilities of New Balance, its product technologies and some of its back-office functions. It will take care of the two existing casual comfort brands of New Balance – Dunham and Aravon – and develop new ones. DryDock plans to launch a new footwear brand in this segment in the autumn of 2012.
New Balance bought Dunham in 1998 and launched Aravon as a brand of women's comfort shoes in the spring of 2004, but their sales have been relatively low. Instead, Clarks has been growing by leaps and bounds under the leadership of Infantino, a former manager of Rockport who has been running the British company's North American operations for 18 years, until his departure a few months ago.
After a big plunge in the previous financial year, Clarks scored a 19.2 percent sales increase in North America last year, reaching a turnover of $735.2 million including the revenues of stores trading under the Bostonian and Hanover banners (more in Shoe Intelligence).
In Europe, meanwhile, Jamie Pennington has joined New Balance EMEA to be in charge of its apparel department, replacing Richard Moyle, who has left the company. He spent eight years at JJB Sports, most recently as football buyer. He previously worked with the British sporting goods retailers as design manager and then as product manager for its private label clothing.
Pennington will work closely with the Royer Group to introduce a good apparel collection for New Balance in various European markets. Royer, which recently got the license for New Balance softgoods and accessories for France, Germany and the Benelux countries, has confirmed its plan to launch a small line of garments under the brand in the fashion circuit for spring 2012. A similar move is planned in Italy.
Royer is budgeting a sales increase of 15 percent for New Balance in its own territory for this year. New Balance says its sales in the EMEA region grew by 18 percent on a currency-neutral basis in 2010. Most of the turnover came from performance running, whose sales across the region went up by 13 percent in local currencies.
